


places we've never lived

by buttcasino, cartographies, coldbam, knifetop, Smallobjects



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Fluff and Smut, BABY WANTS BABY, Canon-typical Taylor Swift references, Getting Back Together, Idiots to Parents to Lovers, Kid Fic, LET QUENTIN BE A DAD AGAIN 2K19, M/M, Magical Accidents, Pining, Todd Ex Machina, Twilight References, the Horny Triad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-26 15:15:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 61,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20391799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttcasino/pseuds/buttcasino, https://archiveofourown.org/users/cartographies/pseuds/cartographies, https://archiveofourown.org/users/coldbam/pseuds/coldbam, https://archiveofourown.org/users/knifetop/pseuds/knifetop, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smallobjects/pseuds/Smallobjects
Summary: “Well,” Alice clears her throat. “Um, if Q didn’t...actively wish for a baby, and it was more of an unconsciously manifested...desire, then I guess he wouldn’t have been too specific about it, and...he winds up with sort of the prototypical perfect baby.”Margo looks suspiciously at the baby and then at Quentin, eyes narrow. “So you’re saying this sap not only dreamed up Eliot’s magically spawned child, but he also specifically wanted, again,Eliot’s babyatpeak cuteness?”Alice raises her shoulders once and quirks her lips as though saying,yeah, that’s basically it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Post the season 4 finale, six friends made a Slack for the purpose of working out their many, many feelings. Then they started cowriting fic in a Google doc to self-soothe. This is the self-indulgent result.
> 
> The fic takes place in an alternate season 3-4 where the monster possession did not happen, although some other significant events did. Enjoy!

Eliot’s full weight is pressed down on him in the dark. It feels like every part of them is touching even though Quentin is still in boxers and the shirt he sleeps in, and it already pathetically feels like he can’t breathe. Eliot splays their arms out on the sheets, his hands tangled in Quentin’s, and he can hear the smile when he brushes his mouth against his cheek, over his nose and says, “Hey, Q.”

“Hey,” Quentin breathes, but Eliot puts his mouth over his in the next second. It’s suffocatingly intimate and the whimper that comes out of Quentin feels disconnected from him, more like he’s about to cry than out of pleasure.

“Hey,” Eliot breaks off at his mouth to say again, with concern now. “No, no, shh—”

Quentin nods, uselessly, and Eliot rucks his legs and hips up before he rocks back, maybe folded on his knees on the bed, giving him a reprieve to take off his boxers for him. Then Eliot gives him no reprieve at all when he stays above him and opens him with his fingers, slowly and slickly. He chokes.

And there’s fumbling with more lube, the only time Eliot is ever anything close to graceless, but even that is still him performing. “Okay?” Eliot asks, and Quentin just nods again, desperately, he’s going insane. 

Eliot’s weight presses back over him as he pushes his cock into him, suddenly steady hands angling his hips up, and it’s too much, his mouth is frozen open. Eliot’s awed moan feathers against his cheek, and Quentin must be making sounds but he’s unmoored from them. He feels like small broken things do when he touches them, parts of himself shattered but almost whispering, _I can be whole again, I can be whole—_

He comes so easily, with an embarrassing little shout when Eliot reaches between them to pump his fist on him, and he can feel Eliot smiling again, mouth at his sweat-sticky temple. He can see it so vividly in his mind how deep and dark his eyes would be just then, like something in him that’s always tense is for a moment sated, relaxed.

“El,” he whimpers, since Eliot’s still pushing into him when he’s like an overworked nerve, but he doesn’t want it to be over. Eliot knows to drag it out, more playful here on top of him than anywhere else, now. When Eliot comes he wrenches Quentin’s face to his, making him gasp, but his mouth is open and quiet, not quite on Quentin’s.

Eliot presses down, down, then stills, his grip on Quentin’s hip easing. After a moment Eliot shifts off to rearrange their bodies, Quentin like a rag doll, but thank god, Eliot’s not pressing so close and present on top of him. What Eliot does do is more harmless, pulling Quentin into the nook of his chin and chest, an arm under his shoulders.

These moments are always kind of contextless, blissed-out, which usually frustrates Quentin later. But just then, he tilts his head up and whispers, “Your arm—your arm’s gonna fall asleep.” 

Eliot hums, presses a kiss into his hair. “That’s fine,” he says, almost happily. “So am I.”

-

Sunlight seems weak and watery everywhere that’s not Brakebills, but it wakes Quentin up just the same. Eliot’s face is next to his on the same pillow, and he’s wrapped up more in him than he had been aware of the last time his eyes fluttered open, like Eliot meant to cradle Quentin. He’s suffused with morning softness and warmth around him.

It’s unfair that Quentin wants to close his eyes again. It’s deeply, stupidly unfair. He knows that, but it still takes him an embarrassingly long time to gently grimace as he disentangles out of Eliot’s arms, trying to pull to one side of the bed.

But like a sleeping finger trap, Eliot shifts on the bed after him, pulling him back in, and Quentin is still facing him when his eyes blink lazily open. That was a really classic mistake on his part, to still be looking at Eliot. His eyes are smudged with leftover eyeliner, and it’s too much when he smiles.

“Come _back_,” he says, almost a _whine_, and Quentin just opens his mouth, disbelieving, when Eliot pulls him closer.

“I’m getting up,” he intones, but he knows if he’s backed into a corner he won’t explain why it’s weird that Eliot wants to cuddle even though they’re not even, like, what would they even be? _Dating? _That conversation would come bundled with other much nastier conversations that would probably at least, you know, lead to them not, uh, having sex anymore, and Quentin is a fucking dumbass. So.

“No, you’re not,” Eliot says, still sounding half-asleep, and does not disprove this theory even when he pulls Quentin’s back to his chest, settles his chin on the top of his head, and lets his arm go slack over Quentin’s side, like his eyes might have closed again. And Quentin’s resolve feels more tenuous, the reasons why this is fucked up seem further away, which—

“I am,” he says, more than a little pathetically, his voice quiet and trailing like it is when he’s embarrassed just to exist. “Uh, leaving. I’m leaving. I’m getting up. I’m going. I’m...”

His mouth is dry.

He doesn’t see it, but Eliot only opens one eye at first, and when he shifts Quentin does turn his face and see that Eliot has pulled back only to look at him. His expression isn’t immediately readable, even though Quentin must know every single face Eliot can possibly make.

“Your hair’s cute, this length,” he says, the effect tender and condescending at once, and he curves his hand down Quentin’s cheek and chin. Quentin’s mouth opens with the gesture and no protest is ready to come out of it.

Eliot grins.

Next he is nudging Quentin’s legs apart with his knee, then he is reaching back for something on the bedside table, and Jesus Christ, Quentin is not getting up at all.

-

Life has settled into an equilibrium, which means that although wild shit happens once a week it’s mostly not the world ending kind. Still, game as they were for anything, Quentin could tell from the looks on Margo and Alice’s faces when they walked in that the sight of Quentin holding a baby in the middle of the penthouse living room wasn’t something they’d ever expected.

“It looks like someone, doesn’t it?” Margo steps closer, tilts her head to the side, and peers down at the baby, who stares solemnly back at her. “I mean, there’s something about the eyes…”

Quentin braces himself and waits, because he knows it’s just going to take another second, if anyone is going to figure this out, it’s Margo, but it feels like the longest second of his life before—

“Holy. Fucking. Shit.”

Yeah, there it is.

“This...baby…looks exactly like Eliot,” Margo says slowly. “Like, if you Benjamin Button-ed him, you’d get this baby. How the _fuck_—I swear to god, if the _fucking_ Library somehow got Eliot’s DNA and _cloned_ him as part of their evil plan…”

“_What_? I mean, I don’t…I think Benjamin Button was like, an old man as a baby, so that's not even...that’s...not what happened,” Quentin offers weakly.

Alice makes a derisive noise. “I wouldn’t put it past the Library, honestly.”

“_Thank you_,” Margo says, and then shakes her head as she glares at the baby. “I’m not taking the risk, we need to get this…thing out of here before it eats us or steals our memories again, or who the fuck knows—Q, give it to me, I’ll handle it.”

And Margo reaches over and _tries to grab the baby from Quentin’s arms _and every part of him recoils, and he suddenly can’t breathe. He yanks his arm away from Margo, hard, and takes several steps back, his heart beating fast and his brain filled with _mine she’s mine you can’t_.

“Don’t touch her,” he says, voice cold, and he honestly doesn’t mean it to come out the way it does, but he hears it, and he sounds crazy, he sounds dangerous. In his arms, the baby makes a distressed noise, like she can tell something’s wrong.

“Jesus, Q, what the hell is wrong with you?” Margo breathes out, her eyes wide. Next to her, Alice looks…not scared, but worried, for him, and Quentin instantly feels guilt settle in his stomach.

“Sorry…I...sorry. I’m fine,” he says, trying to smile, pretty sure he doesn’t actually manage it. “I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

He looks down at the baby, and feels his breath catch in his throat. She’s perfect.

“Hey,” he says softly, just for her, “I’m sorry I scared you. You’re okay…we’re okay.”

“What’s going on, Q?” Alice asks in her quiet, determined voice, and Quentin sort of feels better just hearing it, having her on his side. “Whatever it is, we can help, you just need to tell us.”

Margo puts it less nicely.

“Start talking, Coldwater, and this better be good if you want to convince me that we shouldn’t be performing an exorcism or something on this thing.”

“Okay, she’s not a _thing_, she’s a baby, she’s just a normal…mostly normal baby,” Quentin snaps. “And um, I guess she’s here because of me.”

-

_They were taken to the Physical Kids Cottage and put under magic house arrest to wait out the 24 hours until the mind-wipe potion kicked in. _

_Everyone proceeds to get drunk, obviously. They should probably want to be sober for what is functionally their last day on Earth, but Quentin thinks that sitting with the knowledge that everything that makes you _you_ is going to be ripped out of your brain is more than human beings could be reasonably asked to bear. _

_He feels that way about most of his life now, he realizes with a wrench, sometime around his third drink. _He shouldn’t be asked to bear it,_ no one has the fucking right to ask him to. Least of all _Eliot_, when—_

_Quentin had figured out a way he wasn’t going to have to. He was going to save his friends, and he was going to bring back magic, and he was going to be—done. But now he is just going to have to—except, actually, he won’t have to live with it, and he feels sick with the feeling of not being able to pick between the agony of it and a sense of horrible relief._

_See, one good thing about the Quest was it didn’t give him time to think about it. _It_ being—Fillory, Eliot, Teddy, an entire life lived and unlived at the same time. A life he’d lived inseparable from another person but that he was condemned to remember alone._

_With the end of the Quest in sight, he had thought—well, he hadn’t really been thinking much. But after he is saved from his grand sacrifice, he can’t help but think that maybe—maybe it was a desire to continue to be free from thinking about it, and a simultaneous yet contradictory desire to have the time—all the time in the world, centuries, eons—with nothing to do but think about it. To be free to think about it, but not have to do it while seeing Eliot’s face, or live out a life that didn’t quite fit anymore—to somehow reject that life he had been given at the expense of one stolen from him. _

_It wasn’t just that he was fucking—_sad_ that Eliot didn’t want him, or whatever. It was the overwhelming weight of having lived a life that _didn’t matter_. It didn’t matter because it hadn’t happened. (Did it happen? It happened).That’s the truth of why he brought magic back, even knowing it would kill his dad. He couldn’t live with it not mattering. If he gave up, if the Quest failed, it really wouldn’t have meant anything, in any way, and he _couldn’t fucking bear it_. Eliot—Eliot seemed like he could bear it well enough. Eliot gave no signs he felt that same weight, not that Quentin could see._

_In the end, of course, it wasn’t even Eliot who was responsible, but it isn’t like Quentin is going to go yell at Todd. _

_He corners Eliot in the hallway as he’s leaving the bathroom, and they get right to it. _

_“What the fuck, Eliot? I made my choice, we had agreed—”_

_“No one fucking agreed to anything, Q! You got a hard-on for self-sacrifice and just expected us to go along with it. What, you want me to be sorry for trying to stop you from throwing your goddamn life away? Well, I’m not. I’m never going to be sorry for trying to save you from yourself.” _

_“Why the fuck do you care so much?” This is a stupid and dramatic thing to say, but Quentin knows it’ll get a reaction. That’s what he wants from Eliot, a reaction._

_Eliot gives an ugly laugh. “Because I do! You’re one of my best friends, surely it can’t be that much of a surprise to you, that people _care_ about you—”_

_“Best friends, right.”_

_Eliot’s mouth opens, closes. Quentin can see his first reaction, the one he’s just bitten back, as if it was written on his forehead. _What’s that supposed to mean?_ But saying that means risking learning exactly what Quentin thinks it means. He might have to hear something about how _best friends_ is a pretty weird way to describe someone you have fifty years worth of memories of fucking. _

_It’s ridiculous, because it’s really the fucking least of it, but one of the terrible things about this situation is that it took one of Quentin’s favorite things about himself, one of the small, glowing treasures of his life—_he was Eliot Waugh’s best friend_—and rendered it not a lie, never that, but at least a mocking distortion of the truth. He wished he was brave enough to tell Eliot that he hoped that they could have the honesty to admit to being—exes, or whatever. _

_He could better stand Eliot not wanting him if only Eliot had the decency to acknowledge that he had wanted him, once. Eliot wanting him had been a part of their relationship since that first slow once-over Eliot had given him on the sunny Brakebills lawn and he—missed it. Again, what a ridiculous thing to miss, when up against waking up beside someone every morning, but that’s the thing about his feelings for Eliot, they contain _everything—

_Eliot brazens his way through it. “Yeah, Q. Me and Margo, we’re your best friends—not that she’d ever admit it. We were never going to leave you there.”_

_“Margo,” Quentin says dully, “right.”_

_Eliot looks away. “Who came up with the idea? Who do you think got me the gun? Go yell at Bambi for a while.”_

_“I don’t want to spend my last few hours on this planet yelling at anyone!” Oops. That comes out at a higher volume than intended._

_Eliot ignores this, ignores the deliberate step towards him Quentin takes. He claps his hand on Quentin’s shoulder, smiles with patronizing good-humor, and says, “OK then! I’ll make you a drink and we’ll—”_

_It’s cut off as Quentin shoves him back into the wall. He’d never be able to, except he catches Eliot off guard, his eyes going comically wide right before Quentin kisses him._

_He’s angry. He’s so, so angry. He’s tired of Eliot making choices for him, for thinking he knows better than Quentin what Quentin needs or wants. Quentin is angry at himself for just going along with it, for being so scared of losing Eliot for good that he’s acting in this farce where nothing between them has changed. _

_He’s angry at Eliot for kissing him back._

_And Eliot, Eliot is so predictable, never one to be outdone, he wrests Quentin almost off his feet—what the fuck—and presses his back to the same wall. The high of action-reaction wears off with the reality of Eliot’s solid weight pressing into him, hand fisting in his hair, holding him nearly where he’d be on his toes without support._

_And fuck, _fuck_, it’s not quite—it’s wrong. It’s wrong because these bodies have never done this before, not for a long time, drunk and stupid, Quentin inexpert if not as inexperienced as he half-remembers Eliot admitting hoping for, later. His angle is off on Eliot’s mouth, he can’t quite wrap around his waist, and Eliot is late in shifting him up higher with a hand on his thigh, pinning him in more, and it shifts the pressure on his back in a bad way._

_And it still feels _good_, it’s the first good thing he’s felt in a while, except that he remembers when he and Eliot had done this for years. When he had realized that it wasn’t that Eliot was the best sex he’d ever had, that their bodies fit in a bullshit romance novel way, even if both of those things felt true. It was that he had learned to love the way Eliot was in bed with him, learned to feel that it was the sex most worth having, even, especially 30 years and more into their life together, because Eliot was his life and he loved him so much. And that life is gone._

_It’s like he’s been hit by a truck, and Eliot doesn’t relent because he doesn’t feel it, his tongue in Quentin’s mouth. Quentin breaks off, saying, “God, _stop_,” and Eliot only just pulls back, both of them breathing like they’ve been choked. Eliot’s eyes are on fire but blown black, two things true at once._

_“Is this not what you want, Quentin?” There is an edge of the hysterical in his voice, and he doesn’t ease on him. “You want some we’re-all-going-to-die, end-of-the-world fucking?”_

_“Oh, my god,” Quentin says, only just shaking his head, “shut the fuck up for _once in your life_—”_

_And Eliot gasps so that even through the gorge of anger rising again Quentin can tell how it lands, maybe somewhere between Eliot’s ribcage and his bullshit childhood that he talks around sometimes, sharing his grandest most show-stopping traumas only. Quentin’s never had the luxury of making up a story about how he hurts._

_Eliot pulls his head down at a bad angle by his hair, akimbo against the wall. Quentin gasps in a different way, and Eliot laughs, ugly again. “Jesus, Q,” he says, and his voice is thick, overwhelmed, odd-toned._

_And Quentin sees distantly, numbly that Eliot’s eyes are wet. Some part of him hurts maybe more than is possible to bear because that’s Quentin, Quentin is the one who cries, Eliot’s the one who holds them together, but—_

_Eliot does hold him in place by his hair and pinned at his chest and balanced by his legs, gropes for Quentin’s fly, finds it and pulls it free, pulls his cock out of his boxers. And he spits on his hand and he’s just looking at Quentin, no tears fallen from his eyes._

_The moment seems improbably to slow and the pain dulls as Eliot strokes him, hard and steady, his mouth just falling open with Quentin’s on his moan, a tiny, half-swallowed noise, like Quentin can’t admit how good it is. He can’t._

_Eliot pulls his head back up just so and Quentin’s head tilts back further than that, his breath hitching, given some slack now, his hands clutched in Eliot’s shirt at his sides. Like he was offering, Eliot ducks on him and sucks a bite into his throat, hard, and he feels like he will slip down to the floor. And it’s like, Quentin has a memory for this, it’s like after their initial tentative but enthusiastic fucking and kissing in between working on the mosaic, when—god, Eliot had given him so much, was so generous with pleasure, when they were both experimenting with each other. Had taught him how to ask for things, that he could ask for things, that it was _safe. _That things like this, just this, were sex, were loving because it was them doing it._

_It’s that, but it’s that perverted, so stupidly wrong, and it feels like he can’t hold all of this inside of him, like he needs to cut it out and this might do it. Eliot’s breathing is hard on his face, his eyes back on his and boring into him but like he’s not really seeing him at once, not stopping, never stopping —_

_Quentin comes too fast with a short, brutal few more strokes and he sobs, his body collapsing inward, into Eliot, his head going into the hollow of his neck. Eliot’s hold on him goes loose but he doesn’t let him stand on his own, he catches him, now horribly gentle. Quentin gasps and gasps like he might not come back from this, his limbs jelly._

_There’s come on Eliot’s pants, on his hand, Quentin is too aware of it. Eliot just holds him there, his hand slipped from his hair and his arm wrapped around his shoulders, the both of them breathing in, out._

_After a moment, Eliot wipes his hand on his own pants, straightens a little and eases off of him but doesn’t push Quentin back. Quentin finds his feet, looks down as he tucks himself in, zips his pants back up._

_When he looks back up at Eliot, Eliot looks mortally fucking terrified, staring at him. Like: the last act of their life together was this. It will be this._

_Quentin gulps, his mouth dry. Then he reaches for Eliot’s wrist, the hand sticky with salt, and lifts it to his mouth to lick into his palm with his head down, almost not trying to arouse, the taste of himself bitter. Eliot groans a little just the same, a tiny, stilted, hurting sound._

_“Q,” he says, his voice so small when he’s a king, he’s High King._

_Quentin presses his face into the cup of Eliot’s hand, both of his own hands behind it now, and then drops it, and leaves Eliot standing behind him without being brave enough to look at his face one more time._

-

“So I was trying to see if I could find that cursed amulet Alice told us about, the one that we can maybe bribe someone in the Library with for access? Anyway um. I thought I’d give it a shot? The spell it called for, um, well.” Quentin feels like he’s going to have an aneurysm. “So, I had to chant this incantation in Old Church Slavonic and think about uh — well I thought it translated as “what you seek” but I guess “seek” could also be translated as um...desire. What you desire.” 

A long pause. He can’t meet their eyes and so he looks down at the— Jesus, _the fucking baby, _who blinks big, devastatingly familiar eyes at him. He feels an overwhelming urge to put his nose to the familiar dark hair, and that need to breathe in against the tender crown of a baby’s head is familiar too, and then he can’t resist, and oh god he remembers this, that _smell_—

When he fights off the sudden hot rush of tears and comes back to himself the silence has become more eloquent, the weight of the eyes on him heavier. Margo is the first to speak: “Let me get this straight: ‘what you desire’ is Eliot’s _baby_.”

Oh, fuck. The first thing he’d thought after _holy shit_, _a baby _and felt, after a flooding, paralyzing love, was _how am I going to explain this? _with a pang of hysterical panic_. _But he’s not going to have to explain it, exactly, this is _so much worse_, people are going to take one look and _know_ because the baby is so _obviously_ Eliot’s, it’s _embarrassing_, and oh God, _Eliot_, how is he ever going to explain this to him? 

“I...I don’t, um…” Quentin manages to get out, before trailing off, because what is he supposed to _say_.

Margo covers her mouth with her hand briefly and then says, voice shaking with laughter, “Of course. This is just...classic Coldwater.”

“Hey,” Quentin protests, because he’s not sure what about this absolutely once in a lifetime thing, that he’s pretty sure has never happened to _anyone_ before, could be something Margo says “of course” about. And God, Quentin hadn't even—since when was Margo on Earth, anyway?

(OK, that ridiculous. It's not exactly a surprise. After an exciting and endlessly retold interlude of desert exile that got Margo the axes she currently has strapped to her back in the _middle of Manhattan_, she and Fen had worked out a co-ruling situation and since they've reconnected the clock portal and set it up in the penthouse living room Earth-Fillory travel has been pretty easy. Margo is on Earth frequently, helping out with their various Library plots.)

“It doesn’t look like a newborn?” Alice ventures, uncertainly. “I mean, I don’t know much about babies…”

“Yeah, it doesn’t look like a potato,” says Margo, “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but that is one cute baby. Well, I guess I can believe it. It’s baby Eliot at peak cuteness. Although actual Eliot wasn’t this cute as a baby, I’ve seen pictures.”

Quentin has one short pathetic moment of wishing that he had also seen pictures of Eliot as a baby, before he puts a stop to _that_. He’s obviously biased, but this baby...well, she’s everything he could’ve ever...pathetically, idly daydreamed about while home alone, thinking about Eliot, and Eliot holding their son, and Eliot leaning down and placing a soft kiss on Teddy’s forehead and another one on Quentin’s, and then on his mouth and—just _wanting it back _so much it actually physically hurt...fuck. He keeps hearing Poppy’s voice in his head, _Do you think you’ll ever be a dad?_ He gently runs the back of his finger down the baby’s impossibly soft, round cheek and feels the tightness in his chest ease a little bit.

Margo is right, the baby—his baby? she’s his, right?—is not a newborn, which on one hand, is kind of weird, but also, it’s not like the rest of this makes any sense, so. 

He looks up, and realized that Alice and Margo are staring at him, like they were waiting for him to say something, though he really isn’t sure what. 

“Wait, when did this happen? It wasn’t a newborn an hour ago, was it?” Margo says in tones of horror, and she steps forward and tries to...pry open the baby’s mouth, _Jesus_, before Quentin takes two bigs steps back and puts her out of reach. 

“What the fuck, Margo?”

“I’m checking for TEETH,” Margo says, and a tone of hysteria is definitely taking over. 

“No! No, she wasn’t a newborn an hour ago. She appeared exactly like this.”

“Huh,” says Margo.

“Well,” Alice clears her throat. “Um, if Q didn’t...actively wish for a baby, and it was more of an unconsciously manifested...desire, then I guess he wouldn’t have been too specific about it, and...he winds up with sort of the prototypical perfect baby.”

Margo looks suspiciously at the baby and then at Quentin, eyes narrow. “So you’re saying this _sap_ not only dreamed up Eliot’s magically spawned child, but he also specifically wanted, again,_ Eliot’s baby_ at _peak cuteness_?”

Alice raises her shoulders once and quirks her lips as though saying, _yeah, that’s basically it_.

“Um,” Quentin says and then stops, because he can’t really fight back against that, the proof is right there in his arms, and has to close his eyes for a second, because he doesn’t think he’s ever been more embarrassed _in his life_. “Do you think we could maybe...keep this to ourselves, like does everyone else really need to—”

Of course, _of course_, Penny, Kady, Julia, and _Eliot_, shit shit shit, choose this moment to burst into the apartment, loudly arguing about...cereal?

“No, fuck you all,” Kady is saying emphatically, “Cinnamon Toast Crunch is obviously—” 

“Uh, guys?” Penny interrupts. “Is that a baby?”

-

Penny, at the fucking _group meeting _that has somehow convened, opens proceedings with a too-gleeful, “So he knocked you up, Coldwater?”

“I—no, what, how would that even…”

“Wait, you guys _aren’t_ fucking?”

Quentin sighs heavily and Eliot touches his arm, only to slowly remove it when Quentin jerks away, making the baby give a startled whimper. “That’s—that’s not relevant.”

“It might be,” Alice says, lowering the colored glass from where she’d been holding it to her eye to peer at the baby, “it’s definitely both of yours. Biologically speaking.”

“How is that possible?” Quentin is glad Julia is here to form words and then put those words together into questions for him.

Alice, looking more pained by the second, says, “I think I may have an idea. I hate to ask this, but, I mean, _are_ you—“

Margo scoffs. “Oh _come on, _this place isn’t that big, let’s not pretend we don’t all know who’s fucking who,” and Eliot says, with great dignity, “Yes, occasionally.”

“And when was the last time you, er—“

“Jesus Christ,” Quentin says, strangled, at the same time Eliot says, “This morning.”

Penny stifles a laugh that he tries to turn into a cough. Kady half-heartedly punches his arm and mutters “cut it out,” but the way she’s pressing her lips together and refusing to make eye contact with him makes it clear she’s about to laugh, too.

Margo leans towards Eliot and hisses, “_Occasionally _my ass, your room is right across the hall from mine, and if I had a fucking _Fillorian talking bear_ for every time you two assholes—”

Eliot glares at her and opens his mouth to reply—

“Okay!” Alice practically shouts, and Quentin feels a sudden, deep rush of gratitude towards her, although he does kind of want to know what Margo could do with all the Fillorian talking bears she supposedly would have, “The uh, regularity of the...activity is not really the point, although, I suppose it doesn’t hurt…”

Quentin makes a quiet, pained noise that he doesn’t he even realize came from him at first, and Eliot shoots a quick glance at him, concerned, and hesitantly places a hand on his back. And Quentin...he wants to be annoyed, he wants to pull away, but he...doesn’t. Eliot’s hand is so warm and familiar, and after a moment he starts rubbing circles, slow, soothing, just like he always has, so many times before when Quentin needed something to ground him and make him feel...safe, like everything is going to be okay.

He takes a deep breath and realizes that Alice is still talking. “...so basically, the combination of the spell and the...” 

“You can say sex, Alice, we’re all grown ups here,” Margo drawls, rolling her eyes.

Alice’s eyes dart over to Quentin for a second before she continues, “Fine, the combination of the spell and _the sex_ was enough to achieve the desired but not planned results.”

There’s a moment of silence where it seems like everyone is processing, and looking at the _desired but not planned result_ that Quentin hasn’t let out of his arms for a second, and then…

“So what I’m getting from that is, he didn’t not _not_ knock you up,” says Penny.

Eliot’s hand pauses on Quentin’s back. “Oh,” he says, and that was only one word short of his level of verbosity since he had come home with their entire social group to be told in detail that _he had a baby, they had a baby. _When Quentin manages to look at him, something altogether unrelated is happening on his face.

“Are you _fucking serious?_” Quentin says. Eliot blinks, still glassy-eyed.

“Technically, what you just said, that is literally what happened,” Penny says, as the person in the room who is having the best time.

There’s an excruciating moment of silence as everyone seems to contemplate this. Then, Margo says, “So, what, Q got knocked up and on top of all our other shit now there’s a _baby_?” 

“It isn’t _ours_,” Quentin says, “It’s mine. It’s my fuck up and I’m not going to drag anyone else into it.”

Kady says, “Well, you’re living in my apartment, so…” 

“I’ll leave, then. I’ll get my own place and—” Quentin knows he sounds slightly unhinged right now but, well, if there was ever a good excuse for it. 

“What, you’re just going to find a place in the suburbs and play house? Come on, Q, _obviously_ we aren’t going to kick you out.” Julia says this with a glare at Kady, getting in return an exasperated eye roll and hands thrown up in a gesture that Quentin optimistically takes as surrender.

“It’s not just yours,” says Eliot. He’d said it very softly and and directed at Quentin, but a dead quiet descends, like the audience in a theater when the curtain comes up on a tense final act. 

The look on Eliot’s face had been—but he clears his throat and sighs, with a finely-tuned sense of dramatic timing. “I’m not a deadbeat. With natural virility such as mine one must be prepared to live with the consequences.” 

Quentin flushes, and—they’d explained the spell, when everyone had come in and demanded an explanation for why the fuck Quentin was holding a baby. Luckily Alice and Margo had mostly handled that bit while Quentin had looked anywhere but Eliot, like a coward, but they’d been clear enough on the _manifestation of Quentin’s deepest desire bit_. Penny’s jokes aside, Eliot had to know that this wasn’t some accident. Well, OK, it was. But the fact that a spell had read into the dearest held longings of Quentin’s heart and then made them manifest in a baby girl with Eliot’s face and eyes—that had been made clear, right? But if Eliot wanted to pretend that it was just a very unforeseen consequence of their having fucked that morning, Quentin could at least let him have that. 

“Quentin has made a mess, and we’re stuck with it. Story of our lives, nothing new to see here.” Only from Margo would Quentin be able to take such a caustic line in the spirit of solidarity he somehow knows it was intended in.

“Not quite,” interrupts Alice. “Not quite stuck—if you don’t want to be.”

Everyone turns her way, and she pushes her glasses up her nose in a nervous, familiar gesture. 

“I’d have to do some research, but there are ways to reverse it,” she continues, and Quentin’s stomach drops. He clutches the baby tighter on instinct. That’s—no. Not happening, not up for discussion. That’s selfish of him, maybe. Unfair to Eliot, definitely. This is his fuck up, and he and Eliot should at least talk about it. But he can’t. He feels that sweet, heavy, longed for weight in his arms, and—she’s here and alive and his and he _loves_ her and there’s _no fucking way. _He can’t bring himself to articulate this for a moment, and while he’s still fighting the absurd urge to take the baby and bolt, Eliot says—

“No. Jesus. Wouldn’t that be, I don’t know, murder?”

“Yeah, she exists, she’s a _person_, we can’t just...unexist her.” Quentin says lamely, feeling the need to contribute somehow.

“I mean, I don’t know about the ethical standards concerning magically created babies. Not my wheelhouse. I just wanted you to know—you do have choices.” Alice shrugs, awkward now that all eyes are on her but the subject isn’t magic. 

“She is a person, though, right?” This from Margo, and at Quentin’s heavy sigh, she says, “What? I just want to be very clear on the fact that this baby isn’t the Antichrist, or a vampire, or who knows what the fuck else.”

“Yes. You might want to get a second opinion on...all of this, but she’s definitely a human baby, and she’s Quentin and Eliot’s.” 

“So, we’re…keeping her,” Quentin says, half a question, half not.

Eliot takes a deep breath and then nods, and Quentin knows they’ll have to talk about this more, a lot more, but right now, he feels nothing but overwhelming relief. He smiles down at the baby, and he has to lean down again to breathe in against her soft, dark hair.

“Um. Can I…hold her?” Eliot asks after a moment, tentative, like he thinks the answer might be no, which—

“El, god…_yes_, of course you can hold her, she’s your—here,” Quentin knows he’s babbling, but he can’t stop, and it’s just…he’s gently transferring _their daughter_ into Eliot’s arms and she’s _so small_. Eliot looks nervous, and for a second, he holds her like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands, but then it’s like his muscle memory takes over, and it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Quentin can’t take his eyes off Eliot’s face as he stares down at the tiny bundle in his arms. He looks…scared, and awed, and Quentin gets this sense of déjà vu that’s so strong it makes his breath catch in his throat. Eliot had looked exactly the same way when he’d held Teddy for the first time, and Quentin feels a confusing rush of longing and sadness mixed with joy, because he misses that, he misses their son and their home—somehow having it happening again in front of him makes the loss stand out in stark relief, when he’d been trying so hard to push it down.

“Hi,” Eliot says to the baby, voice serious, and so soft. “Look at you…”

He looks up at Quentin and meets his eyes and Quentin has to stop himself from looking away, because it’s just…so much, it’s too much—but he did this, this is on him, and can’t leave Eliot on his own with it.

Eliot considers him for a second and carefully shifts the baby so he’s holding her in one arm and holds his other hand out, “Come here,” he says, his voice low, and Quentin…goes, and Eliot pulls him close, his hand gentle and grounding, low on Quentin’s back.

“Q…she’s beautiful,” Eliot whispers, and presses a kiss to his temple. Quentin closes his eyes and breathes, and when he opens them, he notices Julia quietly but emphatically gesturing everyone else out of the room. Quentin had honestly forgotten they were even there. Penny looks beyond exasperated, but that’s not his concern right now.

“You’re just saying that because she looks exactly like you,” Quentin murmurs, because he’s afraid of what else he’ll say if he lets the moment go on too long.

Eliot lets out a surprised laugh and presses another kiss to the same spot on Quentin’s head.

“Well,” he says airily, “It’s a good thing the spell you used has such good taste.”

_No_, Quentin thinks, _That was all me._

_-_

_Margo is staring at Todd._

_Todd is staring at Margo, where he’s standing and leaning over her to her eye-level in a chair._

_“What,” and Todd jerks back from her at the electricity crackling through her tone, “the fuck.”_

_“Guys, Margo’s back!” says Todd, fucking incomprehensibly to Margo, until she takes in the corners of the room. Quentin is standing with his body seeming triply-hunched in on itself, but he straightens, looking at her, opening his mouth. Julia, Hoberman, and Penny—you know, 23—look around, too._

_“Great,” says 23, flatly, and wait, excuse her, what had she ever done to him? Jesus._

_Then the memory of being Janet and Margo’s last saved level, big boss at Castle Blackspire, hit her both at once. She can feel how wide her eyes get, and Quentin, who had just, what the fuck, how much time had passed, because he’d just been trying to basically kill himself—_

_“Where’s Eliot,” she says, hating the edge of teariness that sneaks into her voice, that she feels in her eyes. Wet and numb. “Why is every single fucking one of you in here and Eliot—”_

_“Margo,” says Quentin, like someone’s finally just spoken a language he understands, coming to her at once. She suddenly doesn’t understand why she’s still sitting down when he bends in front of her like Todd had, less work because he’s shorter, to go, “hey, Margo.”_

_“Q,” she says, the beginning of going-crazy in her tone, her eyes darting between different guilty faces. Something concrete is falling fast in her stomach, and she’s going to tear through the _luxury apartment_ they’re in for _some fucking reason_ if no one just tells her where—_

_In the silence after Margo speaks, there’s the sound of loud, violent retching from beyond the room they’re all standing in. Margo turns her head in the direction of the noise, looks back at Quentin._

_“Eliot’s, um.” Quentin’s mouth works, opens, closes, opens again with a little considering noise. “He’s kind of going through...withdrawal?”_

_Margo’s mouth drops open, a little, and then she laughs something that would turn long and hysterical, except._

_“If it’s not working,” says Alice Quinn, looking down in a book open in her hands as she does her weird little haughty band nerd-slash-ballerina march into the room, “we can try—" And then she looks up, at Margo. Her lips stay parted, as if prepared to speak, her eyes owlish behind her glasses even in surprise._

_“This bitch?” says Margo, Quentin made to stand (with an offended little, “hey”) as she does all at once, her hands clenching into fists. Quentin’s mouth opens to answer, but Margo goes on, “Fucking _really_? Can anyone tell me what any one of us actually has to do to get the boot out of the Breakfast Club?”_

_“Uh, interjecting non-Breakfast Club member, here,” says Todd, chipperly, raising one finger. Maybe no one else is agreeable enough to the notion of Alice to offer an explanation. “So I found Alice, Alice found the de-mindwipe spells, then Alice found everyone but Julia. Julia came right to Brakebills! And helped me and Alice.”_

_“Todd, I...was the one who came to you,” says Alice, looking at him a little speculatively._

_“Eat your own shit,” offers Margo, to an Alice who still manages to make her glance withering. Hoberman of all people has his face in his palm, like he has a headache; 23 and Julia are listening and sharing glances._

_“Right, no, awesome, that was the order of events,” says Todd, clapping his hands together as he smiles at Alice, as if Margo hadn’t spoken. Alice’s expression in response does not change._

_But she does sigh, then, and seems to square herself, looking at Margo. “Look, don’t—ask me to explain this right now, okay, but Santa Claus helped me break out of the Library. They put me in a cell.”_

_Everyone stares at her. Okay, apparently this is new information for most of the crowd. Margo is obscurely smug that she was not under much longer than everyone else._

_“Is she speaking English,” says 23, without the tone of a question._

_“Yes,” says Todd, still bright._

_“Santa Claus is real?” Julia asks, except she sounds kind of awed, Jesus fucking Christ._

_Alice is practically gritting her teeth to say, “Okay, there’s literally not—even anything—Santa broke me out of the Library! That’s just what happened, okay, that’s just, the whole story. And Todd was the only one at Blackspire I knew would remember anything.”_

_“See, now we’re getting back to the headlines,” says 23. “Why the hell were you even there, Todd?”_

_“Um,” Todd says, but for some reason, his brightness doesn’t dim. “Field trip?”_

_Margo raises a brow._

_“Field trip scouting, I should say,” he says. “For...Dean Fogg, now that Fillory is a...friendly territory!”_

_“Uh-huh,” says 23, squinting at him. “And so you—the Monster. Wait.”_

_Julia looks dimly like she’s just remembering something, since they all are. “You knew what to do to keep it from escaping Blackspire,” she says, slowly. “You knew that it could escape Blackspire. How did you—"_

_Eliot throws up again, in what must be the bathroom closest to the huge living room they’re all standing in to gawk at each other. “Shit,” is all Margo says before she storms in that direction, and there’s a spare second where she’s furious that anyone or anything would make her forget Eliot._

_When she knocks on the door, she gets the most stupid fucking thing she’s ever heard Eliot say, a ridiculous gritted-sounding “Quentin, I’m _fine, _just,_” _that’s followed up by more nobly convincing throwing up. When she’s the one who opens it, Eliot melts into her side when she leans to cradle him by the toilet, hold his sweaty hair back from his face. He isn’t even aware enough to poke fun at her for wincing, really wincing, when he throws up again._

_Margo means to get answers out of Todd, but he and Alice, fucking Alice, fuck off back to Brakebills with a stated purpose that feels retrograde._

_“We’re bringing back Penny,” is what Todd says, fully out of fucking nowhere._

_Kady hadn’t been there when Margo had woken up or otherwise whatevered out of fake-personhood, but she was sure as fuck there at the table for breakfast in their, somehow by default, new digs. Kady is the one who looks at Todd dully, like she doesn’t know what he said._

_“What,” she says, and when Margo looks at Kady, she finds a fuckton of emotion that she can’t immediately categorize. Margo’s brows just raise._

_“A broken agreement destabilizes some of the magical structures of the Library,” says Alice. “And we can get Penny back, too.”_

_Margo is a little surprised; it’s a real credit to Alice’s opinion of Penny that this doesn’t sound entirely like an afterthought. They had fucked, right? Oh, right, they had. That whole situation._

_23 says, with a scoff, “Okay, I get it, I’m fucking chopped liver.”_

_“No offense,” says Margo, leaning over her plate with a ringing performance of sympathy, even putting her hand over his, “but kind of yeah.”_

_Eliot doesn’t feel well for a while. Apparently on top of the coming back to himself and thus not wanting to indulge as much as a Bravo reality star-caliber fuckup, Nigel the bastard son of a British lord (the exact sequence of words Eliot used to describe his _character_) had just checked himself into rehab. So he had a jump right into the worst part of detoxing. And he’s refusing to go to Brakebills or use whatever amount of ambient magic it would take to do something about it themselves, no matter how much she’s been wheedling him. His annoying-ass martyr shit._

_On one of the last days where it’s really rough for him, his legs are splayed on the bathroom tile in close proximity to the toilet, his head back against the wall right then, his eyes closed. She’s sitting on the edge of the tub, looking down at him, her feet between his spread-out ankles. In moments like these Margo gets reacclimated with his face, like just looking at him and thinking of the ways he’s changed in front of her will seal her memories of him a little tighter. Just in case._

_“You know, I think we met one time,” she says, her head tilting as she looks at him. One of his eyes opens, making her smile._

_“We did. I remember,” he says. “Wasn’t sure if you did. I was—it was, some magazine thing? Nigel did an interview for your magazine and maybe...a fucking blog. Can we imagine me doing an interview?”_

_Margo’s smiling still, a little wan now. “I can,” she says._

_He smiles back up at her. “Yeah. And we... ran into each other at your office?”_

_Margo considers this. She can almost get at those memories but they’re kind of out of reach, too. It’s not a great loss; all of their little personas sucked._

_“I kinda remember?” she says. A face in her thoughts seems to flicker, like a bad horror movie. It’s Eliot but it’s not, but in the moment she hadn’t known that. She shakes her head, shaking it away, too. “No. I do remember—really clearly, I looked at you and then someone ran up to me and told me every fucking computer in that building got fried and—Jesus, El, it’s like. I remember two lives. You know?”_

_He looks at her, maybe a little oddly._

_“I mean,” she goes on, “what the fuck do we do with that?”_

_Eliot rubs his forehead. Suddenly he looks tired, she’s way too keyed on to the tiniest change in his expression when he’s this fucking not doing well, and she can feel her brow crease a little._

_“I don’t know, Bambi,” he says, with a sigh. “Let’s ask Alice, when we think of it, since I guess she’s just back now.”_

_Seconds later, Eliot is throwing up again._

_-_

The door closes behind them.

“Hey. Actually. What the fuck was that about,” says Quentin.

Eliot, already at the bedroom’s closet, turns his head back to him with some surprise. “Quentin, you’re going to have to be _so _much more specific,” he says.

They’re both tired. Or, maybe they are—it’s hard to get a read on what the fuck Eliot is actually feeling. Quentin spares a thought for how they have automatically started going in the same bedroom, a perfunctory and deeply fucked up thing even if they don’t stay in each other’s beds, but this is now endlessly complicated by having a fucking _baby _who needs to sleep somewhere_._

They were ostensibly going to figure that out for the baby and Penny, weirdly, had completely drawn the baby into his orbit. Quentin had been baffled and kind of, honestly, charmed enough to not feel too anxious about leaving them alone.

He was definitely exhausted.

And, they had to talk about this. “Jesus, earlier, with the. You, suddenly—you had, like, a _horny cartoon wolf _face when Penny was saying you _knocked me up_? What the _fuck?”_

Eliot turns from on edge to smugly, lightly amused on a dime. “Okay, ‘horny cartoon wolf’ is your point of reference?”

“Jesus! Fuck off! Can’t you just—god, what is _wrong_ with you?” Quentin can feel that he is overreacting to this, because everything else that is happening is now siphoning into this much safer outburst about Eliot being a _horny weirdo_.

Eliot’s brows lift. “I don’t know,” he says, seeming to think but not to hesitate. “A lot of shit?” he goes on, gently apologetic.

Oh. Jesus. Really?

But Quentin, who has never not been easily gamed by Eliot, loses steam anyway, his shoulders starting to slump. And Eliot—Eliot smiles, just a little. Takes liquid easy steps across the room to him, so that his head has to lift up to keep their eyes locked as he draws in close, and Quentin almost isn’t surprised when Eliot tilts his chin up further with his index finger, looking down at his face in the way that would make him feel adored if not for everything else.

“Sorry, there was a question,” Eliot says, his voice low with their closeness. “You had another question, Q.”

Quentin’s lips part, just. “I hate you,” he says, and it’s with a lot of feeling, but the feeling definitely isn’t _I hate you_.

Eliot hums, tuts his tongue, “Oh, no, no, that wasn’t it. What was the question?”

Quentin’s eyes could almost close, Eliot’s mouth close with him craned up, breath stirring on his own mouth. His face is burning. “Fuck you, El,” he says. “_You thought it was hot?_”

Eliot’s grin goes wide, and he nods into their mouths together as an answer, at once sliding his hand to take a handful of hair at the base of Quentin’s neck and _pulling_. And maybe Eliot doesn’t want to _talk _about the whole life they shared, but he remembers the cheat codes, and Quentin moans helpless and muffled, the core of him suddenly liquid. Eliot uses the leverage of his hair to tilt his head back further, and just _puts his tongue_ on his throat, and Quentin’s knees almost give out, lurching them.

“Oh,” Eliot breathes in unfelt surprise, hot on the saliva on his neck, and pulls Quentin up with an arm around his waist before he doesn’t as much steer as half-carry him to the bed.

Quentin laid out, Eliot strips him haphazardly, yanking pants and boxers off, shirt up, and leaves himself dressed, his shirtsleeves long rolled up.

“Should I pull out?” Eliot asks, pushing his hips between Quentin’s with his hands at the dip into his legs and without a clear objective, clothing against skin. Quentin groans, blown already.

“You’re so messed up,” he says, a crack in his voice because it comes out awed, comes out sounding even more like _I love you._

Eliot laughs above him, sounding surprised, maybe pained.

“Gave you a baby, Q,” Eliot says then, and it’s fucking ridiculous hindbrain shit that shouldn’t make Quentin’s chest seize as Eliot’s body is so close, but it does, it does, his breath stuttering with it. Eliot leans then to kiss his shoulder, soft and sweet, trailing with his mouth down to his chest, noses his nipples with bizarre affection.

Quentin’s mouth falls open when it occurs to him, as Eliot moves down the dusting of hair from his torso to his hips, what he’s going to do, even though he had mentioned _pulling out_. Eliot’s mouth goes down, down, sucking kisses where the skin on his stomach is tender at the same time as he puts a firm hand around his cock, and Quentin gasps.

If there had been something pained in Eliot for a second, maybe Quentin had imagined it, because his grin when he looks up at him from his handiwork is effervescent again but it’s so, there’s no smugness there, it’s just _happy_? And like that, with that light in his eyes, Eliot holds his gaze as he sinks his mouth down around his cock, after his hand.

Quentin hears himself whine, of course he does, how can he not, and he says, “_Eliot,_” and Eliot’s breath is hard and hot on his skin as his head bobs.

And he can’t take it, he thinks he chokes Eliot’s name again as he fumbles for his shoulders, to push him up. “Stop—”

And Eliot does immediately, gasping a little when he pulls off, his face soft and his eyes deep and questioning when he looks at him, but frustratingly undebauched like this doesn’t touch him. Quentin is moaning, a little brokenly, with the loss of sensation.

“I want,” he starts, “I need you to fuck me, El, I can’t do this—”

And he expects smug _now,_ expects a smile, but what he gets is naked, open, pared-to-the-marrow hunger shot through Eliot’s slack face.

“Yeah,” Eliot says, “yeah, I will, baby,” like he’s soothing even though he just doesn’t call him _baby_, now, it’s _worse_, but then Eliot pushes himself over Quentin only to help him flip on the bed, a hand on his hip.

He’s not expecting Eliot to use magic, drawing a familiar sigil with the drag of his finger low on his back and a little indistinguishable whisper that sparks his skin with warmth that spreads. It makes him go boneless on the bed where he was trying to hold himself up on his elbows, his body tense with the expectation of pleasure then not, and there’s filthy slickness now. Eliot still draws down and opens him up with his mouth, the feeling obscene when _Eliot _groans into him, and Quentin can only gasp. His hand goes blindly back, lands on Eliot’s shoulder when Eliot pulls his hips up, and everything’s a fucking mess—

Eliot pulls up, and Quentin, collapsing into the bed like he had his strings cut, panting, hears him unzip his fly, the rustle of pants falling slack before he pulls Quentin’s hips up again easily and and presses down on him at once, and says, gratifyingly shaky at last, “_Q_,” and it feels like he should white out but he’s painfully in his body and there’s too much.

Eliot wrenches him up more than pushing down into him, Quentin’s hips pulling up off the bed, and one of his hands is braced on the headboard and the other one finds Eliot’s hip behind him as he fucks him. Quentin’s face is pressed into sheets that aren’t cool anymore, helpless and hiding, Eliot pulling him up, their breathing, the noise of their bodies, all of it too much. But Eliot cups his face up to look at him when he makes Quentin come, and Eliot’s mouth opens with his, like they’re both finally feeling the same thing.

Eliot gathers him up after, gentle as ever when sweat is cooling. He still has his clothes on? This and the expanse of his chest, something about it with Quentin tucked in close, makes him remember when he crowned him. He loves him so much.

“Did that feel like babymaking?” is the first thing Eliot says, voice soft, the soul of tact.

And Quentin feels the rush of frustration he should feel, but for some reason, he laughs, and laughs some more, presses his face against Eliot’s chest. “Fuck you,” he says again. “Where’s she going to sleep?”

“In bed,” Eliot says, as if confused. “With us. Until we go get a cot.”

Oh. “Oh.” He remembers, of course, it’s all he remembers, the cottage, one bed for four people then for three until Teddy was about, what, seven years old, eight—

“I was just going to change the sheets,” Eliot says then, his hand curling in Quentin’s hair, as if he somehow knows there’s some emotional thing he has to just rush them over. “You distracted me.”

“Yeah,” Quentin sighs, buried in his chest in spite of himself. “That was...that was definitely all me.” And he can almost hear Eliot smiling.

“All those...baby hormones,” Eliot says, with the smallest, most condescending pat on the head.

Quentin’s face tips up in dawning horror, his mouth opening to say _anything,_ but Eliot’s face is warm.

“Just go to sleep, Q,” Eliot says, and he’s stroking his hair soft and close, his tone not belying that he expects his commands to be followed. “Okay? For a little while.”

And he does.

-

Penny hears footsteps coming out of the bedrooms down the hall, and he didn’t mean to position himself with the baby on the couch to ride up on Eliot with the maximum amount of scandalized face, but like, are they _for real?_ He would almost be impressed if he wasn’t grossed out like he would be if it was family. Everyone else had gone back out for food.

“Are y’all serious?” he asks when Eliot materializes from the hall, and Eliot, who looks exactly like he did when he and Quentin had disappeared, stops short for whatever other purpose he had swanned out of bed for. Smiles.

“He needed a nap,” he says easily, crossing his arms. “I know a...spell.”

“Uh-huh.” He probably knows that spell. Hey, he’s been around.

“Also, my dick,” says Eliot.

“_Oh my god, no_,” says Penny, feigning covering the baby’s ears, even though she’s asleep.

Eliot sighs, and something in his face changes that’s unclear until Penny realizes he’s looking down at the kid, _his kid_. He comes to take her from Penny, not having to do more than gesture to indicate it before lifting her gently, carefully supporting her head. With a practiced motion Eliot shifts her to the crook of his arm like he has done this a million times, and Penny‘s eyes narrow a little, like it will help this picture—_Eliot + babies = good ????????_—make sense.

“This house is fucking filthy,” he says softly, as if to the baby, his voice oddly fond. “I need to deep clean. If you _crawl_, you _cannot_ be in the same neighborhood as these floors right now. Sorry, little girl. We’re a bunch of animals, aren’t we?”

This whole situation is insane, but, well, Penny smiles. “Stepping up, huh?”

Eliot does look at him, then. “Don’t see that there’s much of a choice,” he says.

Penny shakes his head. “Nah, man. I mean, not to get too deep on your first day of parenting, but—” Does Eliot’s face do something weird? Must be nerves. “I was in foster care,” he goes on. “There’s always a choice. And this situation in particular is fucking bananas. I guess you could still make some other choice, it’s early days in terms of this, uh, happening.”

Eliot’s eyes narrow, with an overtone of someone thinking they are going slightly mad. “Wow, the Underworld _changed_ you. Was that... _emotional transparency?_”

Penny rolls his eyes. “Or maybe you’re a shithead and we never talked that much before I died because you were always trying to fuck Coldwater.”

In response, Eliot tilts his head like _okay, yeah._ “Point Penny,” he says.

Penny nods, taking that point. Then, he sighs. “If Coldwater is sleeping it off I could take the kid and you can clean. She’s a sweetie. And man, for a baby, she sleeps like a rock.”

Eliot looks suspicious, and it’s in his tone when he says, “Uh...how very...nice of you.” Still almost squinting, and after a second of regard, he gently lowers her back to Penny’s arms, the contrast to anything he usually sees Eliot do pretty obvious.

“But she’s like literally two minutes old,” Eliot starts then, hands on his hips, “and if she, I don’t know, _imprints_ on you, I think Quentin’s going to kill me with Margo’s weird axes then get me out of the Underworld you-style just to kill me again.”

“What? Dude, wait, _imprinting like Twilight_?_”_

Eliot gapes at him. “What. The fuck, no, imprinting like _baby chicks,_” he says.

“Oh,” says Penny, and he smiles, hoisting the baby up gently; her head tilts in sleep, harmless when supported by his hand, and it is fucking adorable. “Nah, it’s too late for that, man. That’s definitely already happened. Did you not know I’m super charming?”

Penny expects an eye-roll, but that apparently makes Eliot think of something funny.

“Actually, Q certainly used to think so,” he says, and he gets that Eliot smile on his face that Penny somehow knows really well? Smug, and a joke he’s not telling, except he just told it.

Penny blinks up at him, even as Eliot immediately seems to reconsider, the amusement dimming, his mouth opening again, but Penny starts, “_What—_”

“You know what, never mind, weird time to bring that up, I have _wonderful_ boundaries, cleaning, bye,” and Eliot turns.

Penny raises his brows after him. Then he rolls his own eyes.

“Congrats on the bundle of joy, weirdo,” he says after him, not loud enough to really be heard, so as to not wake her. And then Penny settles back and turns his face down to hers, breathing even and soft and small, and he grins.

-

_A librarian he’s never seen before, who looks especially, super-incredibly fucking pissed off and is wearing the identical skirt suit and makeup look that many of them do, appears in his office. Literally appears, cold, in front of him._

_“Uh?” he says, when she just stands there, glaring._

_“William Adiyodi,” she says. “Please exit this office. You’re being reassigned.”_

_“Okay,” he says. Things have really flattened out here, if he even thinks to remember from what his human-alive perspective would have been, so this just seems like some new wrinkle, and he’s not even that concerned. He stands up, takes a decisive loop around the woman glaring at him still, and opens his office door—_

_He’s in the Physical Kids cottage, standing in the middle of a sigil. It’s empty and dark, and the person standing in front of him, surrounded by a ring of strayly-placed candles, is Todd._

_That’s his name, right? Gawky kid who tries to be Eliot._

_“Oh, shit,” Todd says, and the joy that tips on to his face is kind of inspiring to watch? “That worked! Oh, shit. Oh, shit, okay. Hi, Penny!”_

_“Hi?” he says. “Are you...dead?” And he doesn’t know why, because obviously he does not know Todd that well, but deep sadness at that thought strikes him almost physically. He blinks._

_“Uh, no, you’re alive. You’re back. The contract with the library was void because they lied about the terms. Which really fucks them up, as it turns out! So you’re just, uh, you’re here, with this spell stuff they told me to do—”_

_“Oh,” he says, and the whole of his insides are pitching. “Oh, my god,” and he falls forward, clutching his side like it’s physical but it’s not entirely, feeling roiling through him, not even for the first time in his fucking life, thanks _magic_. But it’s worse now, it’s like, it’s like he’s feeling _everything—

_“What the fuck,” he gasps, curving in on himself._

_“Oh!” Todd kneels by him. “Oh, god, yeah, you—the Underworld remove is gone? I’d guess that’s what happened?”_

_“What the fuck?” is also his next question._

_“When you’re in the Underworld, things feel settled really weirdly, even if they’re not at all,” says Todd, brightly. “It’s like insta-therapy but terrible and unproductive because you’re supposed to be dead, so?”_

_Penny gasps, and he’s crying, and he thinks of _Kady_, and he thinks of all the times he’s let everyone in this stupid fucking school down, and it’s all crashing in on him. He can’t breathe. He can hardly see now._

_“Penny, oh god,” Todd is saying, reaching for his shoulders, “Penny, it’s okay, breathe.”_

_It seems, feels impossible that he will ever get to the other side of it, that he’s even connected to himself to breathe, but he is and he does. He thinks of traveller training, strayly, and there’s another pang, another stupid fuck-up. But the hold _everything_ has on him eases and releases slowly, like the world around him is taking a deep breath and letting him to shore._

_Eventually he uncurls himself and Todd turns on all the lights in the cottage, before he brings Penny a blanket when he lays down on the couch. Penny thinks that he guesses this is his closest thing to home? It had been so long. Damn._

_“Uh,” Penny says, now feeling like he had ten different hangovers, each with very unique characteristics. “Thanks. I don’t really understand...why this is you. But thanks.”_

_“You’re welcome. I know,” says Todd, a bit nonsensically, but whatever, Penny is undead now, so._

_“Where’s Kady?” Penny asks. “Where is… anyone, actually?”_

_“Oh.” Todd’s eyebrows shoot up. “So. Uh. Haha. Funny story—mindwipe then a lot of other stuff! Uh. You guys live in a penthouse and it’s fine? Oh, and Penny 23 decided he wanted to go back to being a DJ so you’re officially the one and only Penny again."_

_Penny stares at him, and right as his mouth opens to say something, starting with “back to being a DJ?” Alice bursts in the front door of the cottage. He’s somehow shocked to see her, takes a moment for him to register that she’s a mess and has dark circles gaunt under her eyes, but he almost doesn’t care and kind of like, leaps up with his post-death blanket off to hug her as she’s saying, “Oh my god, Penny! It actually—”_

_The hug cuts her off, a noise of surprise choking off from her too, an, “Oh.”_

_Penny blinks at himself and pulls back, his hands on her shoulders. “Alice, holy shit,” he says, and he finds he’s smiling._

_She looks uncertain, maybe, uh, overwhelmed? And her posture is super-stiff for a second. Then, she smiles back at him. “Welcome back?” she says, and he’s really, really gratified to see she’s actually a little teary-eyed. Okay, would it have killed everyone to react like this when he actually died?_

_But he pulls her back into a hug, and after a stock-still second, she hesitantly reciprocates it with an awkward pat on his back that like, wow, it’s Alice. He’s going to see all their people again. Wild shit._

_“Uh, guys?” says Todd. “This is...really touching, but we have stuff?”_

_Damn. Penny thinks he hasn’t had stuff since, well, he fucking died._

-

Quentin opens his eyes to a disorienting phenomenon familiar from many a depression nap: hours have passed, and now it’s almost dark. He’s been woken up by the door opening. He can barely see in the dimness, but he’d know Eliot’s shape anywhere, even before he feels him sit down by Quentin’s foot and hears him say softly, “Hey, Q.”

“I’m up, I’m up,” Quentin mumbles, and when his fumbling with the bedside lamp succeeds in getting some light into the room, it illuminates Eliot smiling at him, fond. He’s holding the baby, and Quentin _hurts_, looking at it. 

“Why did you let me sleep so long,” Quentin says.

“Well, you need all the sleep you can get. Our little vampire freak girl here is going to be keeping us up.” 

He sounds—doting, Quentin knows what Eliot is like (“_sorry, Q, he does look weird, you have to admit it turns out newborns are kind of terrifying”_), but he can’t stop himself from saying angrily, “Don’t—don’t call her a freak.” 

Quentin thinks he sees something flash across Eliot’s face and thinks maybe he’s succeeding in getting Eliot to drop the act for one fucking second, but then it’s like he can visibly see Eliot choose to reinterpret what Quentin’s said and how he said it according to his own view of how the universe should be ordered, because he says, as if they are bantering—

“You’re right, other than the miraculous arrival, she seems weirdly normal. No teeth—”

“Goddamnit, can you not start with the Twilight jokes?” It comes out far harsher than Quentin intended and he instantly regrets it. He’s angry at himself, not Eliot. Or angrier, at least. “I’m—fuck, I’m sorry. It’s just - how are you not furious. With me.”

“Why would _I_ be angry at _you_?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Eliot, maybe because I fucking _nonconsensually manifested _your _baby_. It’s—becoming a parent should be choice and I’m sorry and I should be sorry that I’m not sorry enough to reverse it, but I’m not because…” he trails off, overwhelmed. 

“I don’t think that was a sentence,” Eliot says, joking tone restored, “Q, listen, I…” 

But Quentin cuts him off. “Look, this is on me. I don’t want to tie you down with something you didn’t ask for. I’m—I’m giving you an out. I’ll understand if you want to…” He was going to say “bail” but that doesn’t seem right somehow. Eliot has never bailed on anything in his life. _Well, with one notable exception_ his brain supplies, but no, that isn’t fair. “...not do...this.” 

There’s a pause where they both look away from each other and down at the sleeping baby, who Eliot has placed gently on the bed, and then Eliot says in a strange toneless voice, “Well, it isn’t like this is the first time you’ve made me a dad without me having to ask.”

Quentin suddenly can’t breathe. Eliot isn’t looking at him, which makes him furious, and makes him glad, because he doesn’t want anyone to see the look on his face right now. 

Eliot continues to speak, but it takes Quentin a moment to tune back in, “...and then everything with the effects of that dragon egg...you didn’t mean to. It was an accident, it’s not like you had much of a choice either.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Quentin struggles to keep his voice pitched low, and Eliot’s eyes widen slightly.

“Whoa, Q, hey. I’m…sorry? It meant what it sounded like. I don’t blame you and I’m not mad at you for something you literally had no control over.”

Quentin’s not sure why that bothers him so much. It wasn’t really a _choice_, Eliot is right about that. It wasn’t as though Quentin had sat there and asked the spell to irrevocably complicate his life and Eliot’s, and everybody else’s, by throwing a baby into the mix. But Eliot keeps referring to it like it was some drunken mistake they’re regrettably stuck with, and it wasn’t that. And yeah, the whole...situation with Poppy and the dragon egg had maybe made the whole thing worse, but it didn’t make him feel anything that hadn’t already been there, just waiting for him to acknowledge it. He _wanted_ this, or it wouldn’t have happened at all; he still wants it, and he’s sick of Eliot telling him what he did or didn’t (or would, or wouldn’t) fucking _choose _like he doesn’t know...

But it’s not really the place for that conversation and it never will be. What matters now is the baby lying between them on the bed.

“Q? I’m trying here, I just…can you help me out a little, please? I don’t know what you want me to say.”

Quentin forces himself to take a breath.

“Okay, I…thank you. I know.”

Eliot’s still staring at him with his eyes wide, and he looks hesitant and a little scared, and it’s so far removed from how Quentin thinks Eliot should look, especially about him, that he feels a little jolt in his stomach. But then, a surprise magic baby would make anybody look a little freaked out.

He reaches out and places his hand over Eliot’s and Eliot turns his palm up so that their fingers slide and then lace together and Quentin doesn’t know why his throat suddenly gets tight, it’s just. The immediacy and ease of it, the way Eliot grips his hand like he _needs _the contact, it’s almost like. Almost like he—

The baby makes a small noise in her sleep, and they both jump, look down at her, and after a moment Quentin can feel both of them relax, when she sighs deeply and her breathing evens out. Her soft little curls—she already has so much _hair_, god, Quentin’s subconscious really went overboard on this fantasy baby—fall across her forehead in a way that’s achingly familiar. She deserves everything, the best he can give her.

“I just um—El, I’m serious. You need to tell me right now if this is something you actually want to do, because if not, it’s okay.”

Eliot actually _flinches_ and yanks his hand away and now Quentin is the one staring at him, unsure.

“Well _thank you_, Quentin, that’s so_ generous_ of you.” Eliot’s voice is so cold and deliberate and it hits Quentin like a punch to his stomach. “You know, if you don’t want me to be involved you can just say so, no need to spare my feelings.”

Fuck. Quentin’s not sure how they got here, and he’s not sure how to say _I want you involved, I want everything I can get from you, but I need you to want it, too_ without sounding too desperate and obvious.

“Spare your—I’m trying to spare you being _miserable_ because you’re too fucking noble for your own good, dumbass.”

“I wouldn’t be,” Eliot snaps, and he meets Quentin’s gaze for a second before quickly looking away.

“Okay,” Quentin says, and he wants to try to be soothing, but he knows that Eliot would respond to it as condescension, and he knows Eliot so well, they know each other, but they still keep accidentally hurting each other like this. Quentin tries to remember if it had been this hard in Fillory, and he knows the answer is probably yes and they’d made it work anyway, but this just feels…impossible.

“I don’t know how to make you believe me,” Eliot says after a moment, staring down at the baby. He’s still not looking at Quentin when he says, “I wasn’t so bad at it the first time, right?”

Quentin wants to laugh, but in that way where it’s not really funny. Is Eliot seriously still trying to act like he doesn’t know how exactly this baby _happened_ in the first place? He has to realize there’s a reason that Quentin ended up with _his_ baby specifically, and not just a random one, right? But he can never ask. Just the thought of it makes him want to die of embarrassment. And he doesn’t blame Eliot for not wanting to address it—why would he. So. Here they are.

“You were great at it,” Quentin says, and he smiles because it’s true. No matter what happens with them, that part is always going to be true.

Something in Eliot’s face eases slightly at that, and he nods. “Okay. So will you let me do this with you?”

Eliot doesn’t want him; he’s made that perfectly clear. At least like, beyond a convenient friends-with-benefits way. Quentin’s still not sure Eliot really would want this, the baby, either, given other options, but now that it’s happening, Eliot’s doing what he did with Fillory, and marrying Fen, and every other time he’s committed himself to what is best for the people he cares about. Quentin loves him for it. And Eliot…Eliot does love him, even if it’s not the way he wants, and he knows he’ll love their daughter, too.

“Yeah, El,” Quentin takes his hand again and squeezes. “Of course.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, they did bang 3 times in 24 hours. You know, casually, as friends.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> some flashbacks, Quentin and Alice eat spaghetti, medieval torture devices, the baby is not named Renesmee, and she's not a Pisces either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no monster = more time to fight the library = more magic!
> 
> rip to the show's first years but ours are different

_They get back to the penthouse from packing up his dad’s place, and Julia is immediately dragged off by Kady for—something. He doesn’t have the bandwidth to follow along with the plot right now._

_“I’ll go get Eliot.” Julia stands in front of him where Quentin is trying to become one with the couch. It’s obvious she doesn’t want to leave him on his own._

_“It’s okay, Jules. Go.” He means it. He’s just planning to drink and brood, and he doesn’t need a companion for it._

_“I’ll go get Eliot,” she says._

_“Julia, don’t—”_

_She crosses her arms. “Q, I don’t know what’s going on with you two—”_

_“There’s nothing ‘going on’ with us, I just don’t—” Quentin tries to interject, but she’s not having it._

_“Something is definitely going on, you used to be like, all over each other...don’t look at me like that, you _were_. He’s your other best friend and you barely talk.”_

_Quentin shrugs and wishes he were drunk already._

_Julia sighs. “Look, whatever it is, I know he wants to be here for you right now. And I’m not leaving you alone. Your bullshit can wait, okay?”_

_Quentin sets his elbows on his knees and lowers his forehead into a waiting, cupped palm in defeat, and hears Julia’s heels click on the hardwood as she leaves the room. He knows better than to argue with Julia when she’s in this ‘let’s get Quentin sorted’ mood and—well, he wants to see Eliot just as much as he wants to avoid Eliot. So, a lot. _

_Not that he’s been avoiding Eliot, exactly. They’d come back to themselves in Marina’s apartment and Quentin had just been so happy to see him, even though Brian hadn’t known to miss him. He’d embarrassingly launched himself into Eliot’s arms without thinking, and Eliot had returned the hug, just as fiercely, but it was like Quentin could feel the moment when the memory of their last interaction both hit them, the way Eliot’s shoulders went tense under his palms. But when Eliot pulled back to look at Quentin his smile was bright and he had said “It’s really good to see you, Q,” and it had just become another thing they didn’t talk about. _

_Quentin remembered, later, Brian looking in the mirror one morning and seeing the huge hickey that he tried to convince himself his girlfriend could have made. _You were the only thing I carried into that new life_, Quentin thinks a little hysterically, but no, we don’t have to talk about it. _

_So things haven’t been any more weird than they have since that day in the throne room at Whitespire, but he and Eliot also haven’t been alone. Mostly not even by design, everything has just been total chaos and his dad is fucking dead—_

_He’s broken out of this thought by the feeling of cool glass bumping against his knuckles. Quentin looks up to see Eliot standing before him, holding out a drink. When Quentin takes it, Eliot sets down on the couch next to him. _

_“How are you, Q?” _

_He wants to retort with something ugly like, _my dad is _dead_, how do you _think_ I’m doing?_ No, that isn’t what he really wants. He wants to spill his guts to Eliot. Eliot is the only person in the world he feels like he could confess everything to and find some relief in it, but he’s also the last person he can talk to. Because Quentin can’t talk about his dad without talking about things he and Eliot are very carefully not talking about. Quentin can’t tell Eliot how he made a choice that would result directly in his dad’s death because he had to make the life they lived, the life Eliot had been forced to live, mean something. He can’t tell him how at least before his dad died, Quentin had gotten to tell him about the son he’d named after him. He can’t tell Eliot how he couldn’t bring himself to tell his dad about Eliot and what Eliot meant to him and now he never can. _

_“Um, alright.” Weak little laugh. He takes a fortifying swallow of his drink, and grinds the heel of his palm into his eye until he sees stars. _

_“You were gone a lot longer than—everyone expected.” _

_Quentin can’t talk about his dad, not directly. Not right now. But the familiar urge to unburden himself to Eliot wells up in him. “Yeah, well. Me and Julia had to clean out my dad’s garage. It was that or let my mom trash it. It took a while.”_

_“You saw your mom?” _

_Eliot’s voice is carefully neutral and it fucking drives Quentin crazy. Because he knows he told Eliot all about his mom, at the mosaic. He knows it just like he knows the scar on Eliot’s elbow and knows exactly at whose hands Eliot received it and that having to talk around the gaping black hole at the center of you where your father resides is really Eliot’s area of expertise. But this Quentin, in this body, has never told Eliot much about his mother. That Quentin, that Eliot, had only got around to talking about their parents when they were parents themselves. Quentin doesn’t know what the protocol is here—do they just pretend they don’t know these things about each other? How do they have this intimate conversation while also pretending they don’t possess the knowledge allowing them to have it?_

_Eliot just waits patiently, while Quentin searches for answers to these questions in the bottom of his glass. Eliot is sitting very close. He can feel the heat of Eliot’s thigh against his own._

_“Yeah,” Quentin forces himself to say before the pause gets too weird. “She was pretty pissed at me. Can’t blame her. I mean, you can’t get ahold of your kid long enough to tell him his terminally ill father has died, no wonder she thinks I’m a jackass. But it’s always hard being around her and remembering how no matter what I do in her eyes I’ll never be anything but that fuck up, that broken kid.”_

_“Fuck her,” Eliot says with a vehemance that feels disportionate. “Fuck anyone that makes you feel that way. Makes their kid feel that way.” _

_Quentin feels warm at Eliot’s defense, despite the way the conversation has already gotten out of his control. Quentin’s feelings getting hurt over the fact his mother had never—when she couldn’t even know that missing his own father’s funeral wasn’t even the half of it—_

_He cuts himself off from this frantic spiral. Of course his mom is not actually the easier subject. Everything he can bring himself to say in this moment is just the tip of some monstrous iceberg. _

_“What—what about your day? There was something with uh, Josh, right?” Coward’s option, throwing himself on Eliot and hoping he’ll provide some distraction. He can’t help darting looks at Eliot’s handsome face, and then letting his glance jerk away as if burned. But right now he finds it caught, pinned against his will by the warmth in Eliot’s eyes. Eliot obliges him. He usually does. _

_It’s a joy to watch Eliot settle back into the couch, sigh theatrically, roll his eyes skyward, pull his features into a disgusted grimace. Performing for Quentin’s benefit in a way that has always made Quentin feel like he’s the center of Eliot’s world. Quentin knows Eliot, knows he performs constantly and sometimes for unbearable reasons. But this is a particular strain that makes you feel Eliot’s joy in it, complicit and necessary to that joy in your role as his audience. _

_“I have had to spend more time today contemplating Josh Hoberman as a sexual being than I ever intended to or, hopefully, ever will have to again.”_

_Quentin gives a laugh of genuine, delighted shock and horror. “Wait, what?”_

_“So apparently…” and then with gusto Eliot launches into the story of Josh’s Quickening and how it fell to him and Margo to figure out a solution to his predicament that didn’t end up with someone dead or catching the curse themselves. Quentin has been letting Eliot hold forth unimpeded, but at this he has to break in, because he’s an idiot. _

_“Wait, um, you sleeping with Josh was...on the table?” At this Quentin feels—well, he feels a lot of things. _

_With a put-upon sigh Eliot says, “I would have made that sacrifice if I had to, but very fortunately for me Josh is the token straight man of our merry crew, so that was Bambi’s fate.” _

_Quentin has—even more feelings about many parts of that sentence, but: “Margo’s a _werewolf _now?”_

_“No, because yours truly had the genius idea that if Earth wasn’t providing any solutions, we do have a magical kingdom that could make itself useful, so before Margo threw herself on Hoberman’s sword I got Penny to pop me in to Fillory to see if they had any last minute miracles, and as it turns out there’s actually ancient spellwork that prevents any crowned High King of Fillory from being transformed into any magical creature. So I came back and shared the good news and provided emotional support while Bambi lay back and thought of England.”_

_Quentin does laugh a little, as Eliot goes on, spins the story out with ever more ludicrous detail, There’s a rock somewhere behind his rib cage, and a wet pressure behind his eyes, and everything is truly fucking awful, and yet. And yet._

_Brian had lived a life with no sharp edges. Quentin indulges in the weird thought experiment of imagining explaining all this to him and how horrified he’d be. Not the magic and murder and mayhem, but just this—his feelings for Eliot, what it’s like when Quentin looks at him right and hates him a little and loves him so much it feels like his insides have been scooped out and _wants _him so badly he can barely think of anything else, and then beating under all that like a heartbeat the simple pleasure of sitting beside Eliot and hearing him talk about something ridiculous. _

_Brian would have wanted to run for the hills. Quentin wants—he wants a lot of things, but he couldn’t live without this. God, how could he have thought he could live without this? How could he have thought of giving it up for some bleak lightless eternity in a place called _The Castle at the End of the World? _He had lived a life free of memories, free of longings, for eight long months, and his life had been very _nice_ and _completely fucking empty_. Brian would be right that it’s kind of terrible, but Quentin thinks he would do anything, _anything_, for it._

_Of course, Quentin kisses him. He feels Eliot go shocked and still for a moment, and then he’s kissing Quentin back. _

_Almost desperately, Quentin thinks, but—maybe it’s just surprise that makes the kiss awkward, that has Eliot’s hands flying up to cradle Quentin’s face. _

_It doesn’t last long before Eliot is pulling back. Quentin feels Eliot’s thumb, sweeping across his cheek, and the look in his eyes is awful, pitying. _

_“Q you’re upset. We shouldn’t—” Eliot says. Gentle, already moving away. So generously giving Quentin an out, an excuse for this pathetic display, forgiveness for throwing himself at Eliot even when he’s let Quentin know that he doesn’t want him. Quentin clutches at Eliot’s collar, desperate to stop him putting that distance back between them. Because Eliot has been there, being Quentin’s friend, but Quentin is so selfish._

_“I just—I need. I need to not think about it.” _Make me not think about it. _He could almost beg. Quentin isn’t totally lacking in self-awareness. He knows he’ll hate himself for this in the morning, for this depthless, selfish need. _

_Something comes over Eliot’s face, at that, makes him say, “Okay, okay,” stroke his hand down Quentin’s neck and back up to bury itself in his hair, to kiss Quentin’s cheek, the corner of his mouth, before hauling him up by the hand and leading Quentin to his room. _

_As soon as the door is closed behind him they’re kissing again and Eliot is attempting to maneuver Quentin backwards and—there’s nothing Quentin loves more than this, than giving himself over into the care of Eliot’s clever patient generous hands, but he doesn’t think he can stand it right now. He wants nothing more than to let Eliot wipe away every thought of his grief from his mind, and he thinks it might kill him. So he shoves Eliot back, helped along by Eliot’s surprise at this turn of events, gets them arranged so Eliot is sitting on the edge of bed blinking down rapidly at Quentin on his knees before him. _

_This too is familiar. Quentin loves it, Eliot knows he loves it. Even this Eliot, the one content to lose decades of memories of Quentin’s love of sucking his dick, knows, because that night with Margo Quentin had _begged_ for it. He loves the conjoined sense of power and powerlessness it gives him, the way it turns his mind to static to dedicate himself to nothing more than making Eliot feel good. There’s almost nothing else that gives him that precise feeling—because Quentin would have been embarrassed to discover exactly how much he needed taking care of, if it hadn’t been for how transparently obvious it was that Eliot loved to take care of him. Eliot is saying “C’mon, Q, let me—” _

_Quentin knows the way that sentence will end and he won’t be able to stand it, he’ll give way in the face of it. Luckily he knows all of Eliot’s weak places too. He has his own magic words, granted by the knowledge of innumerable nights, so he lays his head against Eliot’s clothed thigh and says—_

_“Please.”_

_Eliot isn’t hard. Quentin guesses trying to distract him from crying about his dead dad isn’t that arousing. There’s something painfully intimate about pulling Eliot’s soft dick out of his pants and underwear, hazily familiar from middle-age: of wanting to touch and fuck but being long past that stage where you were ready for it literally all the time. Of having to work for it, to take your time and slowly build up that fervor. It sends a physical pang of tenderness through Quentin, as he presses gentle kisses to the soft skin of the head. He’s—miscalculated. He can’t keep up the distance he needs. He’d had the armor of fury last time, and it let him walk away from Eliot without touching and now he wants to make up for it. _

_They aren’t middle-aged, though, and it doesn’t take long before Eliot is fully hard from Quentin’s tongue and hands and Quentin sucks the swollen head into his mouth. God, he loves this, the tiny hitches of Eliot’s hips, the heat, the stretch. He takes in Eliot’s length slowly. This is as familiar as anything about his own body and yet newly strange; in this body, in this life, he hasn’t done this since that night with Margo. He wants to get to the place where this blisses him out, where he can go mindless off feeling and tasting and thinking of nothing but Eliot, but Eliot is weirdly—unmoved, distant. _He doesn’t want you, idiot_. He reaches up to where Eliot’s hand rests on his thigh and puts it in his hair, he wants Eliot to fuck his mouth—but what Eliot does is stroke Quentin’s hair, runs his thumb along the edge of Quentin’s ear, and suddenly hot tears spring to Quentin’s eyes and Eliot immediately pulls him off and says, “Jesus, ba—Q, come here.”_

_He sits up, draws Quentin into his lap. “Q, let me—“ _take care of you_, Quentin can hear it so perfectly; “let me take your mind off it, alright?” _

_And Quentin does. _

-

They’re taking their time choosing a name for the baby.

“It’s kind of weird just thinking about her as ‘the baby,’ right?” Quentin had worried, when they’d first brought up the topic of names and neither of them had any ideas.

Eliot had agreed that it was a little bit weird, but correctly reasoned that it’s not actually possible for a baby to have been less expected than this one, so they should give themselves some leeway on the subject.

“I don’t want to give her some basic, boring name, just because,” Eliot had said, while gently running his fingers through the baby’s curls, and Quentin thinks he would have said yes to anything Eliot proposed at that moment, even if he wasn’t totally on board with the sentiment. Which he was, completely.

“It should be perfect,” Quentin agreed, and Eliot had smiled and it had been a really nice moment.

This, unfortunately, means that the Twilight jokes are seemingly going to continue for the foreseeable future. 

“I thought you said you never read those books,”Quentin had said accusingly and Eliot had just rolled his eyes and said “Oh Q, of course I never read those books, but I saw the movies. Everyone saw the movies_._”

Quentin had admitted that everyone—except Julia, somehow—had seen the movies, but refused to answer when Eliot asked if he was Team Edward or Team Jacob.

“Hey,” Margo says, one day when she’s back from Fillory for a visit, ”Do you think Renesmee is gonna have any magic super-baby powers?”

“Oh my god, Margo, if you call her that one more time,” Quentin sighs, shifting the baby in his arms as he feeds her a bottle.

“What? She doesn’t have a real name yet, and if the tiny, unnatural baby shoe fits…”

Quentin turns towards Eliot, who is sitting next to Margo at the kitchen island, looking up at the ceiling like he’s trying not to laugh.

“El?” Quentin asks him. “Are you going to encourage this?”

Eliot fails at not laughing, and offers, still looking at the ceiling, “It’s honestly really funny?”

Quentin wants to kill him. For one second, he really does.

“I am…suing you for full custody,” he spits out, but he thinks it would be a lot more forceful if he weren’t currently holding and rocking a baby with Eliot’s eyes who wouldn’t even exist if Quentin hadn’t literally wanted her so much.

Eliot finally looks at him, appearing genuinely bewildered. “She doesn’t even have a birth certificate.”

“Yeah, does this baby have any legal status?” Margo wonders. “How can you sue for custody of someone who doesn’t technically exist?”

Eliot looks at her admiringly. “Bambi, this is what I love about you, always asking the tough questions.”

Quentin…_hates them_.

“Oh!” Margo slaps Eliot’s arm excitedly. “Do we need to forge some papers? Is it time for a heist?”

Eliot grabs her hand and holds it. “I don’t know if we’re there yet, but can I just say, I feel so much love and support knowing you’re ready to forge legal documents for my magically produced daughter even though you still think she’s kind of creepy.”

“I hate both of you,” Quentin announces, but both Eliot and Margo just smile fondly at him.

“Aw, he’s so cute when he’s mad,” Margo coos.

Eliot sighs. “He really is.”

Quentin has to leave the room.

-

Julia has known Quentin since they were eight, but she can think of only one incident she could file in her “Quentin and babies” mental folder, and it didn’t inspire much confidence. 

But Quentin and Eliot are apparently baby experts and it’s _weird as hell_.

Julia and Margo have never been the best of friends, but this is proving to be a real bonding experience. They’ve taken to a lot of whispered consultations in hallways. No one else is as obsessed with the whole thing as they are. 

“I mean, I love them, but I was worried about that baby,” Margo is saying. “Quentin and Eliot having to keep a baby alive? And none of us were going to be any help. But—”

“But apparently you shouldn’t have worried,” Julia finishes for her.

Margo nods. “Yeah, today they were going on about _crawling_ and _tummy time? _And did you know that babies don’t have fucking _knees? _God, kids are fucked.”

Julia shakes her head, kind of sharing the feeling more generally? “Has Eliot ever been around kids?” she asks next. “Because the only time I’ve seen Quentin with a baby, we were at a friend’s party and he nearly dropped this two-month-old, caught it _by its arm,_ and he...thought it was _fine_? We almost got chased with pitchforks by a bunch of former philosophy majors.”

“Jesus _fuck_. Well, Eliot told me, and I quote, ‘I had a lot of cousins,’ but he’s full of shit. He forgets I know about the Great Babysitting Mishap of 2005,” Margo concludes darkly.

“The babysitting—?”

“You don’t want to know. Worse than arm-hang. _Much_ worse.”

Julia winces.

“Well, between the two of us we should be able to pry some information out of them.”

Margo tilts her head, considering. “Okay, a tag-team approach, I like this. As much as I want to just scare the shit out of them with the very idea of us joining forces, we should probably play nice. For now.”

“Yeah, they wouldn’t know what hit them,” Julia laughs. “So I’ll work on Q and you take Eliot? Or should we mix it up, keep it unexpected.”

“Mix it up, definitely.”

Admittedly, there’s really not much of a plan to it, because they’re not even sure what they’re looking for, but their strategies are a) be as casual as possible and b) act interested in Quentin and Eliot’s endless baby discussions.

“Jesus,” Margo groans. “They love talking about that baby! I mean, I agree, she is like, unrealistically cute. But there’s only so many photos of her sleeping I can look at, you know? I’m sorry, babies don’t have an ‘ideal photo angle.’ I love El so much, but I’m considering taking away his phone.”

Julia laughs. “Yeah, it’s really sweet…but I need a break from the baby talk sometimes. You know what? Maybe we should go out. Happy hour?”

A few months ago, Julia would not be inviting Margo, of all people, to go get drinks, but hey. When your respective best friends suddenly decide to raise a baby together, things get interesting.

Margo snaps her fingers and grabs her purse off the table, emphatically. “Yes. Thank god. Guaranteed baby-free zone. They would never take their perfect little angel into a bar.”

“Kady and Alice are at that hedge meeting. Guess that’ll leave poor Penny here without backup,” Julia says, and Margo rolls her eyes.

“Don’t even, Penny is obsessed with the baby. He probably can’t wait to babysit while Q and Eliot go off to the bedroom and try to pretend like they’re not tenderly banging. It’s like, please, no one needs to ‘plan for the baby’s future’ that often. She can’t even crawl yet.”

They head out the door with a breezy “Impromptu girls’ night, don’t wait up, hope you enjoy your nightly bone session!” from Margo, and the looks on Quentin and Eliot’s faces are absolutely priceless.

-

Julia starts with Eliot and decides to try flattery, because, well. It’s Eliot.

He’s swaddling the baby, since Quentin had informed Julia with this absently matter-of-fact tone that _babies find it really comforting_.

So, Eliot’s swaddling the baby. She would say _expertly_, but she doesn’t even know enough to say that with confidence. It looks right though, so she sidles up to him, but like, casually, and says, “Wow. You’re so good at that. I’ve always heard people say that it takes a while to figure out how to do it right.”

Eliot smiles easily and finishes wrapping the baby up. She looks like a giant burrito. Julia decides to keep that thought to herself.

“You’ve always heard? I didn’t realize you were involved in so many discussions about baby swaddling. Well, those people must not have my excellent hand-eye coordination and innate sense for working with fabrics.”

He looks at her, clearly amused, like he knows what she’s up to. “Why? Do you want to learn? I could teach you, or you know, there’s videos of everything on YouTube these days.”

Yeah, she’s not getting anything out of him this go around. Damn.

“Oh, no, that’s okay. I’ll uh, leave that to you experts. Just curious.”

Eliot smiles. “Hm. Okay. Sure,” he says, scooping the bundled up baby into his arms and strolling away.

So, that was a bust. With Quentin, she decides to go for a more direct route, because she has years of practice getting Quentin to tell her things he doesn’t want to tell her, usually just by being annoying about it.

She finds him one day in Eliot’s room (his and Eliot’s room? they keep insisting they have separate rooms, but she doesn’t think Quentin’s bed has been slept in for weeks), changing the baby’s diaper. He’s humming softly while he’s doing it, off-key as usual, so much that Julia can’t even tell what song it’s supposed to be. The baby doesn’t seem to mind, though. She’s kicking her feet and smiling, like having her diaper changed is a total blast.

“So, since when do you know how to change a diaper?” Julia asks, leaning on the doorframe.

Quentin stops humming, looks up at her and rolls his eyes. “She’s been here for a few weeks now, it’d be messed up if I didn’t.”

“No, but I mean, you knew instantly. Like, day one. I watched you.”

He shrugs and finishes up the diaper change, tossing the used one and baby wipes into the diaper pail, which Eliot had determined was the best after extensive research. Julia knows this because Quentin had told her all about it, like the hunt for the most hygienic diaper disposal unit on the market was universally thrilling stuff. Julia’s just happy he’s happy. She reminds herself of this frequently.

“It’s not that hard. Easier than cloth diapers, that’s for sure.”

“Oh?” Julia says, trying to keep her voice casual. “When did you use those?”

Quentin blinks, and it’s so obvious he’s hiding something, it’s driving Julia insane, but he just says, “I mean, that’s what I’ve heard. You know. From. The blogs?”

“Sure, right. The blogs,” Julia agrees, nodding in mock seriousness.

“All done, sweetheart,” Quentin says, ignoring her and turning his attention back to the baby. She lights up at the sound of his voice, instantly, which is very sweet, and Julia feels a little emotional about how emotional it clearly makes him.

Quentin buttons the baby back into her onesie and lifts her off the changing table. With practiced ease, he brings her up to rest against his chest. He starts to walk out of the room and Julia follows him.

“So, these blogs, I guess that’s how you also learned about all the other baby stuff you seem to have mysteriously just picked up one day,” she says, upping her pace a little to make it to Quentin’s side.

Quentin shoots her a look like, _are we still talking about this_?

“Yeah, sure. It’s always good to do research. And, you know, you can find instructions for pretty much anything on YouTube,” he concludes, and that’s the end of the conversation for now because Alice has just returned home with some news about the Library and they have to deal with that.

Later, Julia meets up with Margo to see if she’s had any better luck.

“No!” Margo says, clearly frustrated. “Nothing. Did they give you the line about how you can find anything on YouTube now?”

“Ugh, _yes_.”

Margo shakes her head, and Julia sighs. “Well. Let’s keep trying, I guess. They’ll slip up eventually.”

-

The baby is fussing and won’t eat, and Quentin tries not to feel like too much of a failure. You’d think he would be able to figure out how to make his own magic baby happy, but, then again, it is pretty typical of him to fuck up something that should be a sure thing.

“Hey, want me to try?” Eliot asks. He and Margo and Julia had just come in from a grocery store trip and are unloading bags onto the counter.

Quentin makes a frustrated noise and hands him the bottle. “Sure, go for it. Maybe it’s just me.”

Eliot gives him a look that somehow manages to be both admonishing and fond at the same time, and takes the bottle and then the baby, expertly settled into the crook of his arm like always.

“Okay little girl, go easy on us,” he says, low and sweet. Quentin is transported back to the cottage, and coaxing Teddy to eat his vegetables, which somehow always worked when Eliot was the one doing the coaxing. “I know you’re hungry; it’s tough work being so beautiful. Believe me, I can relate.”

Quentin rolls his eyes and laughs, transfixed, as always, by Eliot’s voice and the way his strong, gentle hands keep everything safe.

“There you go, honey,” Eliot says softly, as the baby’s cries quiet and finally stop as she starts to suck on the bottle. He’s always been so good at this. “See, I’ve got you.”

Quentin feels like he’s about to melt into a puddle on the floor and he’s not sure what his face is doing. This is all just. So unfair.

Eliot is smiling down at the baby, his face soft and open. When he speaks, it sounds almost like he isn’t even thinking about it, like he’s somewhere else. “That’s my good girl. See, she just needs a little bit of persuasion to start eating, but once she starts, you can’t stop her, just like—”

He stops and blinks a few times, as though stunned.

Quentin, so warm just a second ago, suddenly feels numb and it’s like he can’t breathe as the silence catches and holds and he hears what Eliot isn’t saying.

Eliot’s face is now carefully blank, his eyes still fixed on the baby in his arms, and Quentin can’t—he wants to scream, because he is so pathetic, he’s been fucking pining over this lost life and the way Eliot used to love him, and their family, so much so that he actually _gave them another baby _and. Eliot _can’t even say their son’s name_.

“Really?” he chokes, his throat so tight that he can barely squeeze the word out.

Eliot looks up at him then, and just as quickly looks away.

Unfortunately, they’re not alone in the room, and Julia and Margo, who never miss anything, are watching them with narrowed eyes. He knows they’ve been conspiring, and this is just more fuel to the fire. The food sits ignored on the counter.

“Just like who?” Julia asks.

Eliot clears his throat and turns to the sink where he grabs a clean towel and tosses it over his shoulder so he can burp the baby. He makes this all look so natural. Except both times now, it’s only happened because Quentin dragged him into it.

Quentin opens his mouth to attempt some excuse as to why he has to leave the kitchen, to get a diaper or blanket or some other random baby item, but before he can even speak, Julia shakes her head.

“Okay, no, this is getting too weird,” she says firmly. “You guys need to explain yourselves. We’ve tried being subtle—” at that, Eliot lets out a derisive snort and even though his back is turned, Quentin can tell he’s rolling his eyes.

“Uh, enough with the attitude, El. Stop being a dick. What the fuck was that about?” Margo snaps, crossing her arms. Next to her, Julia does the same, both of them strangely physically imposing despite their actual heights.

At that, Eliot does reluctantly turn back to face her. He may be able to avoid everyone else, but not Margo.

“Don’t mind me, Bambi, you know I say silly things all the time that don’t mean anything. I don’t even know what I was talking about.”

“Uh huh,” Margo rolls her eyes. “Fine, I guess I’ll just have to put the pressure on Q, he’s a pushover.”

Quentin guesses something like panic is showing on his face, because Julia’s face softens a little and she sighs. “Q, come on. You know we’re only being like this because we love you, right?”

“Okay, Jules, listen, I appreciate your support but this isn’t really the time—”

“When will be the time? Next week? A year from now? When the baby is going to college? Something is going on and it’s clearly important and we’re not just going to let it go.”

Quentin realizes Julia and Margo are right, and among the fear he expected at the thought, there’s a sliver of relief there, too.

Eliot stays silent, as he gently transfers the baby to rest against his shoulder and pats her back. He won’t look at Quentin. And it’s not like Quentin doesn’t know how Eliot is. He remembers, from all their worst fights at the mosaic, how after the initial outburst of anger, Eliot would go cold and quiet, and act like it never happened. His polite, distant attitude and absolute refusal to engage made Quentin more furious than anything else ever could.

Eventually, one of them wouldn’t be able to take it anymore and would apologize, not even caring whose fault it was, or they’d break down and have angry sex that would ultimately lead to laughter (and maybe some crying) and then turn sweet and tender. And somehow, despite everything that Quentin had always heard his entire life, it did make everything better.

Quentin remembers all of that, and he knows Eliot. Quentin is going to have to be the one who does this, for both of them. It’s frustrating and yeah, it hurts. But even if Eliot doesn’t think of himself as like, Quentin’s _partner _or whatever, anymore, Quentin doesn’t think it’s ever something he’ll truly be able to shake, the impulse to cover and protect Eliot’s weak spots.

He should just get it all out there at once, like ripping off a bandaid, but something is stopping him from finding the words. For so long, he’s followed Eliot’s lead and pretended like the entire thing never happened.

This should have been something he was glad to tell his friends about. Instead, he feels embarrassed, knowing that they’re going to understand too much, and he feels ashamed, because the life he had in Fillory has made him feel a lot of things, but embarrassment hasn’t been and shouldn’t ever be one of them. Teddy and Arielle, his grandchildren…they deserve that much at least.

“Okay, um. So I guess…I’m not sure where to start,” Quentin finally says.

“How about you start with El’s annoyingly cryptic unfinished comment just now and why he’s doing his whole obnoxious avoidance thing?” Margo, of course, recognizes the same things in Eliot that Quentin does.

“I’m not—” Eliot starts to uselessly protest, but Quentin takes a deep breath and cuts him off.

“El, stop. It’s okay. We have to just…he was. Talking about Teddy,” he says quietly. “Our son.”

There’s a pause and Quentin looks at Eliot, who draws the baby a little closer against his chest but otherwise looks unaffected, and Quentin hopes that hearing it out loud hit Eliot somewhere inside so that he feels the same way Quentin does right now. It’s not even that he wants to hurt Eliot, he just wants them to be on the same page again, a team.

“I’m sorry, your _what?” _Margo cuts in, speaking slowly, in that terrifyingly deliberate way she has. “Let’s back up. Did you just say you had a _son_? Like, both of you, together? Because that, first of all, makes no goddamn sense, and if it were true, would be a really fucked up thing for my _best friend _to have kept from me.”

Next to her, Julia crosses her arms. “Tell me about it.”

Eliot looks guilty and Quentin winces as he takes in their expressions.

“Okay, I know you guys are mad, and I’m sure you have um, questions. I get it, but we—”

Quentin is interrupted before he can finish that thought. Penny, Kady, and Alice have chosen that moment to come home from their fact-finding mission to a Brooklyn hedge-witch safe house. Because oh right, that whole Library thing is still going on, Quentin thinks vaguely. Oops.

“Oh shit, are we late for another Babysitters Club meeting?” Penny asks in mock panic, because he either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care about the tense mood in the room. He’s such an asshole, but Quentin’s grateful for the reprieve.

Kady laughs. “Wait, did you read those books?”

“Listen,” Penny shrugs, “There weren’t a lot of options in the shitty underfunded school libraries in Florida. Hey so, anyway, we found out some stuff, if you want to—”

Margo makes a frustrated noise and cuts him off. “Okay, I know stopping Library fascism is really important, and obviously I’m in support of it, fuck them, hashtag resistance, etc. But you literally just walked in right as these dipshits decided to share that, oh by the way, they have _another secret kid _they never bothered telling anyone about.”

Penny and Kady exchange a glance and then shrug simultaneously, like they’re open to hearing more.

Alice drops an armful of ancient-looking books and overly full manila folders on the kitchen table and then drops herself into a chair, looking exhausted. When they all turn to look at her she waves her hand dismissively. “No, don’t mind me, we just spent the morning running around after an extremely secretive and pissed off hedge witch, I guess I could use a break. And a distraction.”

“Well great, now that Alice approves, we can continue with story time,” Margo says, voice sharp, and Alice rolls her eyes. “Quentin, do not leave any details out or try to bullshit us, because I will know and I won’t kill you because that’d be a fucked up thing to do to your kid, but I will make you pay in other ways.”

Quentin believes her.

“Okay. So uh…remember the key quest?” he begins, sort of pathetically, he will admit.

There’s a pause while everyone looks at him and then each other. Eliot’s avoiding his gaze and looking down at his shirt, but that may be because the baby has just spit up on it, so.

“Uh, the key quest where we saved magic, almost died getting attacked by some weird monster in a castle, until Todd showed up to save us for some reason, then we got mindwiped, and Todd showed up to save us, again, for some reason? Yeah, I think we remember the key quest,” Kady says, rolling her eyes.

“Right. Obviously. Sorry. So…there was one key that…Eliot and I got ourselves.”

Julia nods. “The time key, right? You never really explained how you did it. You just said that you guys…had to solve a puzzle?”

That had been the simplest explanation at the time, and it wasn’t even a lie, not really. No one needed to know the details, except Margo, who already knew, and even she knew so much less than she thought she did.

So much had been going on, no one had questioned it, and Quentin had tucked away his hurt and his memories of a family that no one else remembered and maybe never even existed, and they’d moved on to the next thing. It feels like they’ve only been able to come up for air the last few months, and now everything that they didn’t have time to think about or unpack has started making its way to the surface.

Eliot finally looks at him, and Quentin can’t read his expression.

“Yeah. The Mosaic,” Quentin says, still looking at Eliot, who is looking back at him, and he’s holding their daughter in his arms, which still sends a little pang through his heart, every time he sees it, or thinks about it. “It’s um, a thing from the Fillory books, you have to use tiles…we…it was…it took us awhile.”

“Hard to imagine it took longer than you telling this story right now,” Penny says, crossing his arms and leaning against the counter, like he’s settling in for the long haul, reluctantly resigned to being there for an extended period of time.

“What Q is trying to say in his charmingly eloquent way, is that we went to Fillory to solve the puzzle and get the key, and ended up living there, in the past, for fifty years, give or take,” Eliot suddenly interjects, and Quentin starts a little, it’s so unexpected.

Eliot says it so matter of fact, like, _this is what happened, it’s very obvious if you had been paying attention, any questions?_

“But you weren’t—” Alice starts to say, and Eliot rolls his eyes impatiently, like Alice is being deliberately slow.

“Of course we weren’t. Q wrote a letter to Margo, I mean, Q in the past, wrote a letter to Margo…”

Eliot manages to explain the whole situation with Jane Chatwin—“Oh god, that bitch again?” Kady groans—and the Clock Barrens and Margo getting the key in the present and then stopping them before going through the clock, just in time.

“Time loops,” Alice murmurs, looking interested despite herself, and Eliot nods.

This part of the story, at least, is familiar to Margo, but Quentin can tell she’s reeling from discovering everything they’ve been keeping from her.

“Jesus,” she exhales. “I thought I was saving you both from a shitty existence in like, a sad little hovel. I was so relieved that I _rescued you _from having to suffer in some fucked up Game of Thrones-era Fillory where you were the peasant background characters who die horribly.”

“It was less Game of Thrones and more pastoral period piece on the BBC,” Eliot says breezily, apparently able to talk about it now that everyone’s eyes are on him, now that he can put on a show. “You know that classic story, boy goes on a magic quest, boy goes back in time, boy meets girl, they have a baby…boy’s handsome and dedicated friend is also there, really it’s such a cliché.”

Quentin blinks, but before he can really process Eliot reducing his role in their lives to his _friend _who was _also there_, Julia asks, “Who was this girl you met?”

She looks completely floored and honestly Quentin thinks he would be too, if he found out she had been keeping something this big from him for so long.

“Her name was Arielle. I think you guys would’ve liked her,” Quentin smiles. “I told her all about our friends, and she really wanted to meet everyone. Especially you, Jules.”

Julia sniffs and clears her throat. Quentin can tell she’s touched, and annoyed that it’s interfering with her anger at him. “Okay, it’s still incredibly messed up that you guys never told us about this. Q, we’re going to be talking about this later. But um. That’s sweet. I would’ve loved to get to know her.”

Margo shakes her head and looks at Eliot, and she doesn’t even try to hide the hurt in her eyes. “El, what the fuck,” she whispers. “Why didn’t you…I swear to every fucked up god on Earth and Fillory, I’m going to—”

“Hold on, before you kill them, I want a few more details,” Kady says. “Like, are you telling us you guys had a legitimate polyamory situation going on for fifty years? I didn’t realize Coldwater had it in him.”

Penny snorts out a laugh. Alice raises an eyebrow and Quentin realizes this must be incredibly weird for her, hearing about how her ex-boyfriend had a wife and a son during a period of time that, to her, they were doing their whole on-again-off-again thing. When they had gotten back from the mosaic timeline, everything with Alice had felt so distant to him. He’d had fifty years to get over her. But she hadn’t had that time. He thinks maybe they should talk about this later, if Julia decides to let him live.

“No umm…Arielle died. When Teddy was pretty young. So after that it was…just us.”

Kady winces a little bit. “Oh. Fuck. Well. Sorry? I feel like an asshole now.”

“It’s okay,” Quentin shrugs, a little helplessly, because this whole thing is really awkward for everyone, and he can’t blame her. “You didn’t know. And um. It was a long time ago, you know? It was hard, but we got through it.”

It’s strange, thinking about Arielle. He loved her, thinks he’ll always miss her a little bit. But she’s been gone for so long now; she was a memory even before they left the other timeline. And Eliot’s right here, but Quentin misses him, too. It still feels strange, after so many years of feeling so in sync with each other, to be here, together, but not.

“Yes,” Eliot cuts in, his voice still light, like this isn’t touching him at all, like this is all just an engaging story they’re telling their friends, “sadly our _idyllic_ little triad situation was short-lived, and Q got stuck with me the rest of the time.”

And Eliot…had made it pretty clear before, that this is how he felt about the whole thing, _that’s not me and that’s definitely not you, not when we have a choice_, but hearing it again is almost too much. The happiest Quentin has ever been, the only time in his life—either of his lives—he’d ever felt settled and sure and _right, _and to Eliot, they’d only ever been _stuck_.

_You’re just doing it to him again_, a voice in Quentin’s head whispers, and it sounds exactly like the other him, the one he’d had to face when he’d taken the key from Poppy. Fuck. How could he have been so stupid?

“Well,” Kady laughs, “I guess the mystery of why it seemed like you guys had raised a baby before is solved. It was really bugging Penny.”

“Hey!” Penny protests. “It wasn’t _bugging _me, I just thought it was really fucking weird, because it was.”

“You literally woke me up the other night and asked me if I noticed how Eliot knew exactly the right way to swaddle a baby on the first try.”

“Don’t worry Penny, thinking about me in the middle of the night is a perfectly understandable and common phenomenon among individuals with an active libido,” Eliot says with a smirk, and Penny looks like he wants to kill him.

“And thank you for acknowledging my expertise. Now you can fully understand the history of why Q is using me for my superior baby care skills.”

He says it lightly, shifting the now dozing baby to his other shoulder, amused at Penny’s annoyance. For the millionth time, Quentin wonders how long Eliot can keep up the act so he doesn’t have to let Quentin down easy again, deal with his annoying, messy, unwanted feelings.

Eliot is acting for all the world like the perfect partner. He’d been acting an awful lot like Quentin’s boyfriend at the mosaic too, at first, and then suddenly he was saying “if you’re going to live your life, live it here” when Quentin had thought that’s exactly what he, _they_, had been doing. And then he’d married Arielle.

He’s certain everyone else gets it now, and he doesn’t miss the looks that they’re shooting him, furtive and hesitant, like they don’t want him to notice them now _fully _noticing how absolutely embarrassing he is.

Quentin needs an excuse to leave the room.

“Hey, so that’s…basically it, I guess, so uh, I’ll go put her to bed,” he says, gesturing for Eliot to hand him the baby, who is now fully asleep. “When I get back we can talk about the Library stuff.”

He walks over and Eliot gently transfers the baby into his arms, and they’re standing so close, and Eliot looks at him with something like guilt in his eyes.

“Q,” he says, voice low, and Quentin can’t get into this right now, they just don’t have _time _and it’s just too much.

“It’s okay,” he replies, and it only kind of feels like a lie. “We can talk about it later.”

He’s pretty sure they won’t.

-

_After that night together, following his dad’s funeral, it just sort of…keeps happening. The sleeping together thing. Pretty…pretty frequently. And they’re friends again. Not that they were ever not friends. But things were weird, and okay, god, they’re still weird, but strangely—less weird? It’s like all the ways they related to each other, sex and friendship and that mysterious something else that had illuminated that lost life, call it—partnership, maybe, something so big and important that any words seem kind of inadequate—had been so tangled up in each other that to take any aspect away threw off the whole, but adding this one thing back got it a little bit closer._

_Or...maybe that’s bullshit. Maybe that’s just what Quentin is telling himself to justify this, how much he wants it, how much he’s missed it._

_He knows this can’t end well. For him. It will be fine for Eliot, who is perfectly content to kiss and fuck and just, sexually ruin Quentin for anyone else—which is an exaggeration maybe? but also it’s not, and Quentin feels like it’s been kind of true ever since the threesome and that had made him absolutely furious at the time. Anyway, Eliot can do all that now with a smile and at some point in the future, he’ll decide he’s had enough and he’ll break whatever this is off, and he’ll be kind and gentle about it, and that will make it hurt more._

_So. Quentin’s fully aware that he should put an end to this right now, for his own sake, but. It just keeps happening anyway, and he’s aware how pathetic it sounds to say he’ll take what he can get, but. Well._

_They don’t talk about it, or at least they don’t until they’re already well into the fourth, maybe fifth, what are they doing, _hookup_? Is that what they’re calling it?_

_Eliot is kissing him, and he’s got Quentin backed up against the closed door of the bedroom, because he knows, even if he won’t admit how, that Quentin loves it, the feeling of being contained and held there, straining up to reach Eliot’s mouth._

_It’s just, it’s so good, and just this is enough to make Quentin’s knees weak and his heart stutter. And then Eliot pulls away and Quentin is embarrassed that this makes him whine and chase Eliot’s mouth with his own, helpless, before he can stop himself._

_“Hey, Q,” Eliot’s saying, a little breathless. “So, I’m. This is sort of…happening a lot?”_

_Quentin stares at him. Is this his way of trying to say he wants to stop? Because…mentioning this before he got Quentin pressed against the door and absolutely _desperate_ for it would probably have been a good idea._

_The thought must show on his face, because Eliot rushes to add, “And I’m definitely not complaining. Just…it’s been kind of sudden, ever since…”_

Ever since your dad_, Quentin knows he’s trying to say, and shit, Eliot thinks this is some grief thing, that Quentin’s going to be awkward about it. He’s already pushed his unwanted feelings and asked for too much from Eliot before, and now it’s going to ruin this, too._

_“I mean, it’s totally fine, I’m fine, this is. We don’t have to make it a big deal.” Quentin knows he’s rambling. “We’re both adults. So we can…you know, keep it casual?”_

_The expression on Eliot’s face is…weird? Almost like he’s surprised, maybe. Probably because he knows that Quentin has never been able to keep anything casual in his life, and he knows that it’s bullshit, and he’s going to say no thanks and just end it completely. But then…_

_“Casual,” Eliot says. “Right, yeah. That’s. Great.”_

_Quentin lets out a breath._

_“Okay, great,” he agrees, relieved and resigned at the same time. “Cool. So…should we…”_

_Eliot’s expression shifts to amusement as Quentin awkwardly gestures between them._

_“Should we what?” he teases, and slides his hands to Quentin’s hips, pins him firmly into place._

_Quentin groans and laughs at the same time, letting his head fall back against the door with a dull _thunk_. “Stop being such an asshole. Kiss me.”_

_Eliot grins, and he does, and for now, nothing else matters._

-

Learning_ my ex-boyfriend, who less than a year ago defied death to bring me back to life, in the interim spent an entire life in an alternate timeline with the guy he once cheated on me with, and now he’s magically manifested said guy’s disgustingly perfect baby, _is a lot for anyone to deal with but that’s where Alice is living right now, not that anyone gives a shit.

It’s not that Alice is…jealous, exactly. She certainly doesn’t want to be raising a _baby _with _Quentin_, or anyone. She’s never been one of those people who fawned over babies—they’re mostly weird looking, honestly, like wrinkly little aliens—and her own parents certainly had left a lot to be desired in that department.

_Don’t have children, Alice, _she remembers her mother drunkenly mumbling, at some miserable holiday dinner or another after Charlie died. _They’ll just disappoint you or break your heart. And I don’t think you quite have the temperament for it anyway._

She’d reached out and patted Alice’s cheek, like she thought she’d just said something kind.

The thing is, _Stephanie_ wasn’t wrong. It’s not something you particularly want to hear from your own mother, that you’re a disappointment (it was pretty obvious which of the two options applied to Alice) and that she doesn’t think you should have kids, but Alice is self-aware enough to have come to that conclusion on her own. Not in some sad, resigned way where she’s too damaged to be a mother, but just, genuinely, it’s not something she wants out of life, and that’s perfectly fine.

It’s just…it is _weird _to watch your ex-boyfriend with a baby, and…apparently he’s her ex-boyfriend now, even though they’d never really officially decided that. One day, she’d been halfheartedly pushing him away without ever really making a move to end things, and then he’d gone through the clock with Eliot, and before anyone knew he was gone, everything had changed.

A lot of things are starting to make sense now that Alice thinks back. At the time, it just seemed like Quentin was too focused on the quest to give his attention to _them_ but now she knows that he didn’t have any attention to give, not really.

One look at the way Quentin stares at Eliot as he holds their daughter is more than enough to make that perfectly clear. Well, that, and the fact that Quentin had accidentally messed up a simple spell by wishing too hard for Eliot’s _baby. _Jesus.

It’s not that she thinks Eliot _stole _Quentin away from her, because if she’s honest with herself, things were over between them already, but neither of them had wanted to admit it. She just…wishes Quentin had said something, because she can’t stand the squirming embarrassment she feels whenever she thinks about their conversation before Quentin’s attempted self-banishment and Alice’s betrayal.

He’d let her sit there and spill her feelings to him, and hadn’t had anything to say in response. Alice had assumed it was because when you’re about to condemn yourself to an eternal prison with a murderous god-monster, there’s not really a normal reaction to confessions of love.

He must have felt so _sorry_ for her, and that’s the part that Alice can’t stand. Coming from anyone, it would be unbearable, but she’d almost rather Quentin hate her than have to stomach the idea that all he felt for her anymore is _pity._

So. That’s where Alice is right now, and she’s keeping it to herself, after all she’s done to delicately claw her way back into everyone’s good graces, when they—deservedly—were so reluctant to take her back into the group. She thinks Quentin is okay with her being around, likes her again, probably, but things have been…strange.

They haven’t spent any time alone together since the whole baby thing happened. Not that they’ve been avoiding each other. Well. Alice isn’t avoiding Quentin, but she can’t really say for sure that he hasn’t been avoiding her.

The idea that he’s thinking about her enough to actively avoid her is ridiculous, though. She doesn’t mean that in a self-indulgent pitying way, really, she doesn’t. It’s just true. Quentin’s busy being a parent and barely has eyes for anyone who isn’t Eliot or the baby.

But the rest of the world doesn’t stop moving, and Quentin is forced out of his little cocoon to deal with the outside world, which these days involves the Library and their stranglehold on magic, and the hedge witch resistance movement that she and Kady were attempting to force into existence.

Also, apparently Josh got turned into a fish.

It had taken way too many messenger rabbits to even halfway explain the situation, so finally Margo and Fen had come through the clock in the penthouse living room carrying a fishbowl with a goldfish in it, who is apparently Josh.

“We discovered this hidden lake underneath Whitespire that’s like this untapped resource of insanely powerful magic, which is great, but uh, well, no one can touch it.” Margo gestures to Fish-Josh, whose bowl is now sitting on the kitchen counter. “Fen says she only knows one way to keep him alive for long, and it would have to involve someone who’s in love with him. Can you imagine being in love with Hoberman? Hilarious.”

“Margo, shh,” Fen hisses. She’s covering the top of the bowl with her hands like she can block the sound from getting in. “He can hear you!”

Margo rolls her eyes. “Okay, I’m sorry. I’m just stressed out. No offense, Josh. I’m sure you’ll meet a nice girl with a fish fetish some day.”

“So what else can we do? There has to be something,” Julia says, peering worriedly into the bowl. “Maybe we should—”

She’s interrupted by a loud cooing noise that Alice realizes is coming from Fen, and she’s making said noise because Eliot has just walked into the kitchen carrying the baby.

“Oh! Eliot, she’s _beautiful_, I mean, I knew she would be, but…oh goodness, may I hold her? Look at her chubby little cheeks, I can’t believe…”

Fen has rushed away from the fish bowl and is holding out her hands expectantly. Eliot obviously looks thrilled to be able to show off his perfect little specimen to someone new, and Quentin’s watching them with a soft look on his face that he probably thinks isn’t obvious to absolutely everyone. 

Alice has to refrain from rolling her eyes. Josh is literally going to die if they don’t think of a way to save him _now_.

“Damn,” Margo glances down at the fish bowl and shrugs. “Sorry, Hoberman. Guess you’re chopped liver. Or…chopped sardines?”

Quentin sighs. “Margo,” he says, clearly trying to sound serious, but his voice is wavering a little like it does when he’s trying not to laugh.

“Well, we’ve completely lost Fen to baby fever, and if no one has any ideas—”

Alice clears her throat. “Actually I might. But I’m not sure…I need to go to Brakebills. It won’t take long. Hang in there,” she says in the general direction of the fish in the bowl as she hurries out of the room. It feels ridiculous, but if Josh actually can hear them, it can’t hurt to be positive.

She takes out her phone to call Penny and hopes that she’s right. She usually is. 

-

“Do we really have to talk to Mayakovsky?” Quentin groans when Alice finds him later. “There’s no one else we can go to?”

Alice shakes her head. “He’s the only one we know of who can tell us what we need to know about reversing animal transformation. Well. Emily Greenstreet might know, but she’s off the grid and even if she’d talk to us, we don’t have time to find her.”

Quentin nods reluctantly in agreement.

“Also,” she adds, “I asked Fogg and he said the first years reported that Makakovsky’s. Um. Not in a state to talk to anyone.”

Quentin rolls his eyes and lets out a huff. “Is he ever?”

Alice finds herself smiling, glad for the ease of their conversation, when it’s been mostly polite and stilted for awhile now. “No, I mean literally. He seems to have messed up the math on this spell and doesn’t know who or where he is.”

“Okay, so how are we supposed to ask him how to save Josh?”

Alice holds out the piece of paper where she’s copied down the time share spell.

“We aren’t going to ask him. Well. We are, just not _now_. We’ll use the same spell he was trying to use. Just…I won’t mess up the math.”

Quentin takes the paper and reads over the spell. His eyebrows raise. “Of course you won’t. Okay, so some of us have to go to Brakebills South and—”

Alice clears her throat and pushes her glasses up. “It has to be us. You and me, I mean.”

“Oh,” Quentin says, looking up at her. “I mean, okay that’s—”

“It’s a two person job. And…we were at Brakebills South together, so it needs to be someone that past us won’t be suspicious about. Penny will drop us off, but then he and Kady have to follow up with that hedge witch—”

“No, I get it, it’s fine—”

“I know we haven’t really…spent time together in awhile, but—”

“Alice!” Quentin interrupts her, laughing a little bit. He hands her back the paper with the spell on it. “Relax. Of course I’ll go. You don’t need to convince me. I want to help.”

“Oh. Okay. Good,” Alice takes a breath. “We can go today, if that works for you.”

Josh’s life is at stake and they pretty much have to go today, but she says it like they’re scheduling a time to meet for lunch or something. Because, well, Quentin has a baby now, and he can’t just run off without planning or telling people where he’s going.

“Yeah, let me just…talk to Eliot,” Quentin says, and then makes a face, like it’s weird to him too, that he has to check with Eliot before he makes plans, in this new situation he’s created for himself. Alice realizes this is how it will be now, forever, and the thought gives her a weird jolt of resentment, already mixed with shame at her own pettiness.

She nods. “Okay, I guess just…come find me when you’re ready and um. I’ll tell Penny.”

“It’s a date. Or well. Not. You know,” Quentin trails off. “Okay, see you in a bit.”

He hurries away and Alice sighs. This is going to be interesting.

-

As it turns out, _interesting _is not an inaccurate, but still wholly inadequate, way to describe spending time with your ex-boyfriend’s past self, who looks at you like you’re his whole world, and has no idea that in a few years he won’t love you anymore.

He seems so…_young_, even though it wasn’t that long ago. There’s just something about him, like there’s a weight that hadn’t been there yet, even though it’s not like their lives were uneventful back then, or that either of them hadn’t already gone through a lot already.

But Quentin has technically lived an entire lifetime since then. Logically, Alice knows that, and she can see it in him, the ways he’s changed, how he’s more settled and serious. But coming face-to-face with a Quentin who was so freely affectionate with her, and clearly excited for the beginning of their relationship, and hasn’t had to watch her die, and all of their friends suffer in so many different ways…she hadn’t fully realized how hard that would be.

Alice has to remind herself that it hadn’t been like it was at Brakebills South the entire time they’d been together. It had been a fucked up sort of honeymoon phase, with the forced isolation and the…fox pheromones, and the newness of it all.

Their little bubble had been punctured pretty much immediately upon their return to everything, and everyone, at the main campus. They’d never eased into really feeling comfortable with each other, the way you’re supposed to when you’re dating. True, there had been so much going on, and imminent death threats from the Beast around every corner, so it’s not like it was ever going to be date nights and fucking couple profile pictures on Facebook.

But it was just always so _hard_, little arguments and accidentally hurting each other’s feelings without meaning to, even before the emotion bottles and Quentin cheating on her with not one but two of their friends.

They hadn’t even had a_ fight_, Alice thought more than once, later. Not that it would’ve made it okay, but at least it would’ve been a reason, something to blame, rather than having to admit that when Quentin’s emotions were running highest, she wasn’t who he wanted.

And she can’t even say she had been that shocked, at least about Eliot. A little too much of Quentin’s attention had always been Eliot’s, from the very beginning, and vice versa. It’s not like Alice was _expecting _what happened, but the feeling she got when she’d found the three of them in bed together, Eliot’s arm draped over Quentin like he was _claiming_ him, certainly wasn’t surprise, either.

_This _Quentin doesn’t know anything about…well, anything yet, and it’s nice to be able to pretend, for a little while, that they are those people they were in their first year; they haven’t disappointed each other yet, and the possibility of this new thing they’re discovering together is still ahead of them.

He tries to kiss her, and she thinks maybe it would be nice, to just remember for a second. But a voice in her head, that sounds a little like her as a Niffin, and a little like that overly confident fragment of herself from the mirror realm, suddenly snaps into focus.

_You don’t even want this anymore_, it says, sternly, but there’s no meanness there, just honesty. And…she doesn’t, not really. Part of her, the scared, brittle Alice who can’t handle change, wants to be the girl who wanted this. She knows that. She knows there’s a difference.

So she gently pushes Quentin away, and sees the confusion start to blossom on his face. She’s just starting to think she doesn’t know how she’s going to explain herself without completely ruining everything, when Quentin’s expression clears and something in the way he holds himself shifts and just like that, she can tell he’s back.

“Hey,” he says, and she’s not sure if she’s imagining that he’s looking at her a little strangely. It may just be that it’s the first time he’s looked at her with this much intent in…awhile.

Whatever it means, she doesn’t have time to unpack it right now. He got what he needed from Mayakovsky, and hopefully they’re in time to save Josh.

She performs the finishing touches on the spell to avoid any Mayakovsky-like issues with their sanity, they call Penny, and the rest of the day is a blur. Alice hopes that’s the last time she’ll ever have to visit Brakebills South.

-

It’s much later, when yes, Josh has been de-fished and is perfectly fine—“thanks to Alice,” Quentin is quick to point out—and he, Margo, and Fen have headed back to Fillory to look more into this magic-powered lake, that Alice changes into her pajamas and finds herself heading to the kitchen in search of something to eat.

The penthouse is dark and quiet, kind of odd when only a few hours ago they’d all been frantically running around. She opens the refrigerator and stands in front of the door, staring blankly at the contents inside. It’s packed with baby formula, and carefully marked leftovers from the elaborate meals Eliot somehow annoyingly has time to make. The food is good and she’s grateful, god knows no one else would be cooking, but come on. It’s like he can’t resist showing off.

“Hey,” says a voice from behind her, and she jumps and whirls around.

It’s Quentin, also clearly in his sleepwear, and he’s holding the baby. And they really have to give her a name soon, because referring to her as _the baby_ in her head all the time is getting to be impractical and annoying. And she’s not going to call her _Renesmee _like everyone else.

“Oh, uh, hi,” she stammers, mentally kicking herself for sounding so nervous. It’s just Quentin.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to sneak up on you.” He’s keeping his distance, even though he must have come in here for a reason. “I can…come back later if you like, want to be alone, or…”

This is ridiculous. She wants to say _he’s _being ridiculous, but Quentin is just reading the very obvious signals she’s giving off, so she absolutely can’t blame him for attempting to give her space.

“No, of course not, it’s fine. I was just…” she trails off.

Quentin smiles and comes to stand next to her in front of the open fridge. “Staring at the food trying to figure out if anything looks good and hoping that if you look at everything long enough something else will magically appear? Always a classic.”

Alice tilts her head in acknowledgement and they stand there in silence for a few seconds, but it’s not awkward, at least for that moment.

The baby lets out a gurgle and Quentin runs his hand over the curls at the top of her head and presses his lips to her forehead.

“Is that your way of telling us we should stop wasting electricity and just pick something?” He says, voice soft. Like she understands what he said, the baby babbles back at him and Quentin’s smile is so bright that Alice feels knocked back by it for a second, just witnessing it secondhand.

“Okay, honey, you’re right. Let’s see…”

He rummages around in the fridge for a second, baby secure in one arm. It looks so natural, like he has done it a million times before. Because he has.

“How about spaghetti and meatballs?” Quentin asks, and it takes Alice a second to realize he’s talking to her now.

They heat up two plates of food and sit down at the table, Quentin eating one handed while he holds the baby on his lap.

“El would probably kill me if he saw me putting this in the microwave instead of heating it up on the stove, but, whatever. He doesn’t even like spaghetti and meatballs,” Quentin laughs, his face unbearably fond. Alice has to look down at her plate. “Isn’t that so dumb? He told me it’s _boring_, and that he could make something _for adults_, but I was really craving it, so—”

He seems to catch himself and is suddenly embarrassed, the soft, unguarded look gone from his eyes. Alice wants to tell him it’s okay, he doesn’t have to hold anything back for her benefit. But another look at him and she realizes. It’s not because of her. He clears his throat and keeps eating. After awhile, he speaks up again.

“So…today was kind of weird,” he ventures. “I mean…seeing you, first-year you…it feels like forever ago.”

“It was weird,” she agrees, trying to keep her voice from revealing just _how _weird.

He looks up at her and studies her face for a second, his eyes so thoughtful and worried, like he’s looked at her a hundred times before, like he always does when he cares about something and wants to help somehow.

“Alice,” he says, and then stops, and starts again. “You’re okay, right? I mean…there’s a lot of stuff we never really…talked about, and we don’t have to, it’s just. I want to know you’re okay. I hope that doesn’t sound. I don’t know.”

He shrugs and twirls a piece of spaghetti around his fork.

“I’m okay,” she assures him, and she’s glad to find that she really means it. “Or you know, maybe not completely yet, but. I will be.”

Quentin lets out a breath and nods. “Good. That’s. I’m glad.”

They continue eating in companionable silence for awhile, and Quentin finishes his plate before she finishes hers, but he doesn’t leave. It’s nice, almost like they’re back in the kitchen at the Physical Kids cottage, eating a midnight snack after some late-night studying. Except for the baby asleep on Quentin’s shoulder.

But things aren’t supposed to say the same forever, and Alice thinks she can get used to this, being _friends_.

It’s peaceful, until a glass gets knocked onto the floor when Quentin is attempting to clear the table with one arm while holding his sleeping daughter in the other.

The shattering noise, of course, wakes the baby up, and she’s not thrilled. Alice jumps out of the path of the broken glass, careful not to step in it.

Quentin swears under his breath and gently rubs the baby’s back.

“Shh, sweetheart, it’s okay,” he whispers, and then he lets out a dry laugh. “Did I mention I found out my discipline from Mayakovsky today?”

He obviously knows he didn’t mention it; when would he have had the time? But Alice knows this is a big deal, so she just shakes her head and Quentin continues. “Yeah. Repair of Small Objects.”

She can’t help but smile a little bit. He sounds so disappointed, but. Now that he’s said it, she can’t imagine it being anything else.

“You did always excel at minor mendings,” she says, and Quentin rolls his eyes as he continues to calm the baby with soft noises and rocking motions.

“I hoped it would be something cooler,” he admits.

Alice has to admit, it’s not exactly _cool_, but there are more important things to be.

“I mean, it’s kind of perfect for a parent, isn’t it? Literally and figuratively.”

Quentin looks at her for a second and then down at the baby, and a smile spreads across his face, wide and genuine. “Yeah. You’re right. Thanks, Alice.”

She watches him for a moment, and she’s happy, that he’s found where he belongs.

“Well? Let’s see it,” she says, gesturing to the broken glass shards on the floor. “This will make clean up a lot easier.”

He laughs and says, “Okay, you’re gonna have to take her for a second though,” and Alice has barely had a chance to respond “oh,” before she’s holding out her hands on instinct and suddenly she has the baby, who doesn’t look _excited_ to be held by her, but doesn’t seem upset about it either.

Alice awkwardly adjusts to mimic the way she’s seen Quentin and Eliot hold her, and she is by no means a baby expert, but she’s also a fast learner, so she’s not a complete disaster at this, thank you very much.

Quentin carefully regards the broken glass on the ground and soon it’s like it was never broken at all. It’s nice to watch. She’s strangely proud of him.

“How does it feel?” she asks, curious, and she realizes she’s never asked someone that before. When she was a Niffin, she just knew how magic felt, the countless ways it could manifest and flow and just _be_, but she’s never heard someone else describe it in their own words.

Quentin thinks for a second and then says, “Like I helped it…wake up. And remember what it was before.”

She smiles as Quentin shrugs, a little self-consciously, before he continues where he left off clearing the dishes and taking them over to the sink. Alice finds she doesn’t mind holding the baby, who is small but dense, and the weight in her arms is comforting somehow. She can handle this. In short doses, obviously.

“She really is beautiful,” Alice says, because she doesn’t ever think she’s told Quentin that before, and it’s true. She’s not one of those people who think all babies are beautiful, either. Some of them just aren’t.

She looks like Eliot, obviously, with his eyes and hair and even her little nose looks like his, but there’s something like Quentin to her, too, though Alice can’t quite put her finger on it. Maybe the shape of her chin.

Quentin smiles proudly and he’s just so…overjoyed about being a dad. Alice knows this is how it’s supposed to be.

“I don’t think I want kids,” she says, and because Quentin can’t hear her thoughts, it must come across as really sudden, but he doesn’t look surprised.

“Yeah?” he says, easily, as he stacks plates into the dishwasher. “I feel like…I knew that. Or I could tell. I mean, it’s not for everyone. And it’s totally normal to, you know, not want to.”

He doesn’t sound like he’s judging her at all, which she’s not even sure why she’s worried about, because it _is _normal and she doesn’t need her ex-boyfriend to tell her it’s fine. She’s relieved anyway.

“I guess it’s a good thing you didn’t ever magically wish for my baby,” she jokes, for lack of something else to say.

“Yeah, I don’t think that would have ever happened,” Quentin says, still busy with the dishes, like he’s not really thinking about it, and Alice blinks.

In the ensuing tense silence Quentin seems to realize what he said and he looks over at her, eyes wide.

“Alice, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

She knows he didn’t mean to hurt her. He never does, he never did. He never meant to be hurtful, and neither did she, but they always ended up doing it anyway.

“That was sort of a shitty thing to say, Q,” she says, because honestly, she wouldn’t have even _wanted _Quentin to want to have kids with her, she would’ve been horrified at the idea, and yet. It’s just not great hearing that someone who so very clearly loves kids and loves being a parent wouldn’t want that with _you_.

She’s _holding his baby_ right now, for fuck’s sake.

Quentin nods, desperately. “You’re right, it was, I’m a fucking asshole, I’m so so—”

Alice starts laughing.

Uncertain, Quentin starts to walk towards her. “Alice, are you…”

She takes some gulps of air and manages to say, “Sorry. I’m fine. It’s just. Isn’t this kind of perfect?”

“What do you mean?” Quentin asks, looking worried now, like he looks as though he’s thinking he should take the baby away from her in case she’s having some kind of fit.

Alice lets out another laugh. “I mean…isn’t this always how it was? We could never stop hurting each other’s feelings, no matter how hard we tried.”

“I’m so—” Quentin starts to say again, and she shakes her head.

“Don’t apologize. I mean, not for that. It’s just kind of funny, isn’t it? How we always end up here.”

He’s thinking about it, and she can tell when it hits him, because he laughs a little, too. “Yeah. I guess it is kind of funny. We uh…just really weren’t right for each other, were we?”

“No,” she agrees, and it doesn’t feel like a bad thing for either of them to admit, it feels good, even. “We weren’t.”

They stare at each other for a second and then they’re both laughing again. Alice is still holding the baby, who is squirming in her arms, and it makes the entire thing more absurd. She can’t remember the last time she laughed like this, really genuinely laughed.

“You could be less of an asshole, though,” she manages to say, and Quentin laughs harder.

“I really could,” he agrees.

They’re starting to get semi-hysterical when Eliot walks in, hands on his hips.

His tie and vest are off, a few buttons of his shirt undone, he’s barefoot, and he has a kind of rumpled look to him, like he fell asleep in his clothes without meaning to. It’s the most undressed Alice has ever seen him (except for…that one time, obviously), and he looks weirdly vulnerable.

“What on earth is going on in here,” he starts, and then stops as he takes in the scene. Quentin and Alice, in their pajamas, giggling like idiots, Alice holding the baby, the dirty dishes strewn around the countertop.

Eliot’s eyes are hard to read, but Alice sees a flash of something that makes him look very _young_, is the only way she could describe it, and then they’re just cold.

“Well, isn’t this _cozy_,” he drawls. “I guess Q has started interviewing stepmom candidates already.”

Alice’s mouth drops open and she turns to look at Quentin. He was just laughing a second ago, his eyes bright, and now he just looks. Well, he looks heartbroken, honestly.

It’s such a mean thing to say in such an off-hand way, something Eliot excels at, but Alice can’t even muster the energy to be insulted on her own behalf, because it’s just so _bizarre_. He’s clearly jealous, and how in the world could Eliot think for one second that he has anything to be jealous of? When it’s so obvious how Quentin feels? 

Quentin looks at a loss for words, his shoulders slumped, so Alice takes the lead. It’s not her place to say anything about how Quentin feels or why Eliot, never an easy person for Alice to figure out, thinks what he thinks, but she _can _set the record straight on a few things.

“We were just having some dinner,” she says, holding the baby out to Eliot, who takes her eagerly and cradles her to his chest like he’s afraid she’ll be taken away. “And I was telling Q about how I have absolutely no desire to have kids. Yours is cute though. Anyway, I’m going to bed.”

Eliot opens his mouth like he wants to say something, but can’t actually manage it.

Alice looks back at Quentin, who is staring at Eliot with such _longing _in his eyes, it actually would be funny if he didn’t look so sad.

“Night, Q,” she says, and he doesn’t look away from Eliot, but Eliot is looking down at the baby.

“Yeah,” Quentin says, distractedly. “Goodnight.”

-

After the fifth argument about calling the baby Renesmee, Eliot takes to calling her Margulia, which might be worse.

“Baby Margulia,” Eliot declares, like he’s back in Fillory making a royal pronouncement. He’s holding her out in front of him triumphantly, her little feet kicking in the air. “You’re named after three of the bravest women I know. Margo, Julia, and talented television actress and three-time Emmy winner, Julianna Margulies.”

Quentin pinches the bridge of his nose, then puts out his hands. “Give her back.”

“No, thank you,” says Eliot.

The baby, who is a _traitor_, laughs happily as Eliot pulls her close and kisses her nose.

Quentin’s heart, also a traitor, constricts painfully, and then swells. It’s enough to make him lightheaded, and he thinks, not for the first time, that his life would be so much simpler if he could just know how not to want this. 

-

Quentin is fine with trusting Alice’s conclusions on their daughter, even though Alice’s conclusions had included the recommendation of a second opinion. But Eliot makes an annoyingly persuasive case that she needs, like, a magical baby check-up, at least, and it would be good on top of that to get a double confirmation. Also, Eliot is maybe less inclined to trust Alice’s input? This is odd to Quentin given that this is purely a magic-knowledge-research question, even though, well, Alice had obviously betrayed the fuck out of them, sure.

“I don’t fucking know, Q,” Eliot was saying, with a tired sigh, during a discussion that never really started being an argument due to Eliot’s _concern,_ but felt close to the possibility of an argument. “I just think we need to make sure. That this is just the product of the spell and she’s all good to go and be, well...her beautiful baby self. And the normal checkup.”

Quentin had wanted to say, _I am sure,_ which is stupid. He had just sighed, too, instead, feeling his heart go impossibly soft at Eliot’s care, which was. Annoying, really. And of course, the next morning after wrangling getting ready for a baby outing, which is worse than any sort of warfare situation he had ever been present for in Fillory at Whitespire, off they go.

After they arrive to Brakebills and get to the hospital wing, Lipson looks down at the baby and then looks up at Quentin and Eliot wordlessly, her expression going pointedly flat. Then she looks at Eliot very specifically, for much longer than she bothers regarding Quentin, obviously weighing and measuring their bundle of joy’s appearance against his.

Then she turns and walks away, without a word.

“_Excuse me—_?” starts Eliot, ready with dramatic affront.

“I’ll be right back,” she says, not sounding like she cares at all.

Quentin does not fully have the space to react to this. That’s because he’s trying to force himself not to blush, since Lipson’s significant looks seemed to have somehow immediately discerned a summary of their entire situation? _Why?_

Julia and Penny had come with them, Julia for moral support if there were any unlikable answers about the baby, Penny for, uh, a ride. (“_Still_ not a fucking taxi,” he had said for like the hundredth time, and no one even rotely responded. Sometimes, Penny says ‘Uber’ instead.)

So this leaves four of them to awkwardly mill around in the hallway flanked by rooms and the double beds behind dividers.

“Hey, uh,” Penny says, suddenly, “if we see Professor Sunderland specifically, can we pretend I’m still dead and Penny-23?”

They all stare at him.

“Everyone at this school _definitely_ knows you’re alive again,” says Eliot, sounding like he’s unsure if Penny is fucking with them. “Returns are...kind of a big deal.”

“I mean, listen,” says Penny, “I’ve gotten away with much weirder shit.”

Of the other three of them, it’s unexpectedly Julia who shrugs like that might be true, but then Lipson appears again at the end of the hall with a, what the fuck, huge metallic instrument with _pointy ends._

“Oh, _no no no no no,” _says Quentin, tucking the baby closer to his body, which should not be possible. The baby is unfazed; her perspective of the world must be awesome.

And no one else reacts before Eliot also does, stepping between the rapidly heel-clicking Lipson and Quentin and the baby.

“Sorry, did you just bitch-walk away from us to get a medieval torture device to use on my daughter?” Eliot asks and oh, wow, is it possible to actually physically feel dopamine release in your brain, because Quentin’s reaction to this is, well. Holy shit.

Lipson squints at him. “These are _calipers_,” she says. “They’re...dated, I will grant you. I’ll use it to measure her head and it’s enchanted for a wellness check, for all of our _cute _little Brakebills out-of-wedlock babies.”

She even says the word _cute_ with some distaste.

“Of which I am assuming she is one,” Lipson adds, and Quentin’s face is so hot that it somehow feels cold again. “Anyway, no, I will not be stabbing this baby with this implement, Mr. Waugh.”

Eliot does not seem taken aback or embarrassed at all, of course, he never is, but he does say, “Really seems like you would enjoy that, though?”

And actually, this is really what fully makes Quentin think, _I love you._

Lipson ignores the jibe or doesn’t care at all, with smart money on the latter option, and they follow her into a room in the hallway. Quentin holds the baby while she uses the implement with a surprising precision to measure her head.

“So she is a spell-baby,” says Lipson, thoughtfully. “Well done. Magic that creates life is complex. Universe, balance, scales, so on and so forth.”

Julia and Penny definitely share some sort of look. Wait, are _they _conspiring now, too? What the hell?

“To be frank,” Lipson adds, giving them both another scrutinizing once over, “I wouldn’t have thought either of you were...adept enough for this kind of spellwork. You in particular failed my class fairly spectacularly, Mr. Waugh.”

Eliot shrugs, and she rolls her eyes up to the ceiling like she’s praying for them to leave.

Quentin’s...pretty sure he shouldn’t tell her that he has no idea what he did or how he did it. Somehow, he doesn’t think Lipson would find him accidentally performing what is apparently incredibly complex _spell-baby _magic (which is like...a thing?) amusing. 

“Okay, but is she healthy?” asks Eliot. “You said this did a check-up.”

Quentin hopes his face isn’t doing anything embarrassing, except he knows that it is because he can _feel_ Julia staring at him.

“Oh, of course,” says Lipson, looking at him oddly. “I thought you all would have known if you’d opted in, the nature of life creation spells. She’s literally as healthy as can be and perfectly on-target for what I would estimate her age is on all markers. This is a...perfect baby? Spell-babies are just like this, guys. I mean, if a spell to create is performed successfully, with good intent.”

_Intent_. Oh. Oh, wow. Not a good conversational track, but Quentin feels helpless to stop it. However, Eliot doesn’t seem to take anything particularly interesting away from that sentence, just looking at the baby like he is considering her more than anything else, his hands up like he might ask to hold her. Julia is _definitely_ looking at Quentin, though. Maybe Penny, too, though without Julia’s specifically-honed razor on exactly what Quentin is thinking, sharpened by years and years.

“Depending on the spell you used, her developmental stages might be interesting,” Lipson goes on. “Nothing problematic, though. Just that she might progress through them..._too _proficiently? All babies are creepy to me, but that’s really creepy, to be honest with all of you.”

“Babies aren’t creepy,” says Quentin, basically without thinking.

“Were you _not_ being honest before?” is Eliot’s bewildered question, asked near-simultaneously.

“The Dean might be able to tell you more,” says Lipson, as if neither of them had said anything. “His theoretical knowledge of this topic will doubtlessly be much richer than mine. And then I can go back to actual current students.”

“Which we are,” says Eliot, maybe too quickly.

“Uh-huh,” says Lipson. “A report on everything is on the desk, including a referral to a Brakebills alum pediatrician so you can never bring her to me again. The medieval torture device did that, you’re welcome!” Lipson had started heel-clicking back into the hallway nearly mid-sentence.

They all look back at the desk in the room, the only thing making it look conspicuously more like a regular kind of doctor’s office; there is an average-looking little folder there and nothing else.

“Would this all be any less insane if we were all raised knowing magic is real?” asks Penny.

“Oh, fuck no,” says Eliot, distractedly, picking up the folder. Then he wordlessly holds his hands out, as Quentin predicted, to trade for the baby. So Quentin flips through the folder, and is startled to find a full, uh, _brain scan? _What.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Eliot says, lifting her up in his arms, her face to his, delighting her as always. “Ready to visit the town drunk?”

The baby giggles obligingly.

Dean Fogg is less amused.

“Based on your very _thorough _explanation, Quentin, you literally know all of the information I could give you,” he says, a bit dully. “I have no clue why Professor Lipson told you to come to me unless she’s feeling especially resentful today. Congratulations on your specimen. Also, this is a waste of my time.”

“She is not a waste of your time,” says Eliot, though not with any sort of pretense at offense. “She is delightfully cute, _Henry_.”

“Your latitude to use my first name was on thin ice before you even functionally dropped out of this institution, _Mr. Waugh._”

“You mindwiped us?” says Eliot, before Quentin’s instinct to weirdly also argue makes it to his mouth.

Dean Fogg just smiles up at Eliot, evenly. Eliot actually rolls his eyes?

“Look, say our baby is very cute, like a normal, I don’t know, wizened mentor figure, and then we’ll leave your office,” Eliot offers.

“_Wizened?_” says Fogg.

Outside Dean Fogg’s office, Penny grouses, “I definitely do not need to be here for what is now your weird baby announcement tour,” but he does not pop out of existence and trails them to the Physical Kids cottage anyway. Julia seems to be having a great time.

And Eliot, still carrying the baby, literally walks up to the person closest to them by the door and goes, “Hi, this is my baby,” before he asks the person _if they know each other_, which they don’t.

“I think Margo should have come with you guys instead,” says Julia to Quentin on the sidelines, with a very, very Julia-amused grin.

Quentin is, um. Quentin’s face is red. He assumes.

Eliot seems to be in the beginning stages of single-handedly corralling a debutante ball for their _infant _when the front door opens with a clatter, followed by a lot of limb in a patterned button-up and attached to dark hair that does not belong to Eliot, but instead—

“Todd!” calls Penny, and Quentin blinks at them both when he goes in for one of his bro-hugs.

Then he remembers Todd, uh, brought Penny back from the dead, kind of inexplicably except that it fucked with the Library, maybe? Wow, Quentin is an asshole.

“Penny, hey!” Todd says, into their hug. They are both, like, legitimately excited to see each other?

This is weird. It’s weird seeing someone excited to see Todd. He realizes that’s very mean, but Quentin’s baseline of Todd is having experienced months of Margo and Eliot just endlessly torturing him before their lives started their even clearer disaster trajectory. Todd as a person is kind of an embarrassing reminder of him feeling smugly up, for once, on whatever social ladder Brakebills counts as.

And Eliot, who had been occupied with introducing their baby to people who must be complete strangers, like, maybe most of his cohort has already graduated and maybe even Quentin’s has, appears at Quentin’s side, the one Julia is not on, with their girl held close in one arm. He raises a brow at Quentin, does a questioning tip of his head in the direction of Penny and Todd’s small talk.

“Um. Todd brought him back from the dead, remember,” Quentin leans in, to whisper.

“Holy shit, you guys are assholes,” hisses Julia, making him glance back at her, squinting at how she knew it had also slipped his mind.

“Oh, _right,_” Eliot says, at totally normal volume, making Todd look at them. Improbably, this sequence of events makes Quentin smile a little, thinking of when Eliot was a less complicated proposition as a person.

But Todd’s face, when it alights on Eliot, seems to _light up, _so much that Quentin knows he must be very visibly taken aback.

“Uh,” Eliot says, apparently too bewildered under the force of it to remember his usual dynamic with Todd. “Hi…?”

“_Hi,_” says Todd, clearly to the baby, leaning forward with his hands on his knees, unnecessarily eye-level with someone being held in an adult’s arms, “H—”

Todd pauses, nearly audibly, and blinks, looking at both Quentin and Eliot in turn.

“Hello!” Todd finishes, grinning at the baby. “Who is _this_ cutie?”

Quentin glances at Julia to make sure this is weird and he is not just continuing to be an asshole former nerd who got adopted by the Brakebills cool kids’ table. Her gaze, sidelong, is also bewildered.

“Um,” says Eliot, apparently suspicious of Todd’s entire existence but, like, more so than usual. “Remains to be seen?”

Jesus Christ, _when are they going to name this child._

“She’s our daughter,” Quentin offers. If Eliot has a reaction to him saying this, he doesn’t see it.

“Oh!” says Todd, maybe too propulsively. Definitely too propulsively. “That’s, that’s _so_ awesome, you guys! Congratulations! Hey, cutie!”

The baby is giggling at Todd, who is giving her little tiny, baby-sized waves with his hand, to her great enjoyment. Eliot seems incredibly offended by this turn of events, even though Todd makes an eager but surprisingly persuasive offer to be a babysitter? It’s only surprisingly persuasive because the baby obviously adores him immediately in the same way she obviously adores Penny.

“Uh, so, you guys better call _Todd_ for a date night,” says Julia quietly, when it’s just the two of them back on the sidelines, watching Eliot put up with Todd and Penny both taking turns entertaining the baby with magic. “Before I straight-up murder you both.”

Quentin can’t bring himself to feel embarrassed or resentful of what she’s saying, because Eliot is holding their baby, laughing with her, with his chin on her shoulder as Todd makes little purple bubbles appear in the air, cascading up as she tries to desperately grab them.

It hits him, suddenly: this will be the rest of his life, with their daughter. This clenching in his stomach, watching her and Eliot, and nothing to do with it, nowhere to put it. How much longer would Eliot be interested even in just _fucking?_

“Okay,” he says to Julia, and it must be his tone that makes her give him that look.

-

“I think Eliot and Quentin literally don’t remember that Todd saved everyone’s asses,” says Penny, like it bothers him, because, well. It kind of does.

Kady laughs; she’s holding the baby as they walk back from the little park closest to the penthouse. The combination of seeing her happy and holding a kid maybe does things to his heart, but that’s a hard backburner issue for the next decade or so, assuming he doesn’t die again before that long.

“And how will Todd _ever_ survive their scorn?” she says, a little loftily. “He’s only been Eliot and Margo’s buttmonkey since, like, I knew what his name actually was. That’s his status quo.”

Penny’s expression goes a little flat. “So what, how long is _since I knew what his name was_, forever?” he asks.

Kady nods, grin bright like she had said something very kind, and he’s a sucker, so a little grin lights up on his face, too, and he kisses her. She’s still grinning when he pulls away, his arm around her now.

“You keep doing that,” she says, “and people will think this is our baby.”

He blinks at her, and she arches one brow, like, _try me. _But then he looks down at the baby.

“Nah, this is one pale baby,” he says, and she laughs.

The baby was delicately asleep after a long half-hour of them making her laugh by alternating spinning her around through the park, showing her things. Babies are actually, like, peak fucking entertainment, to be honest.

“Did you ever get him to explain why he started doing all of that shit?” she said. “He’s never gone Avengers by himself out of nowhere before.”

Penny shook his head. “All he would tell me is something about Fogg leaving the spell stuff laying around, like, the mindwiping. Alice has no fucking idea what his deal’s about, either. But yeah, he knew who Julia was when she rolled the fuck up on Brakebills destroying every light fixture in sight, somehow? Which, by the way, fucking insane of Fogg that he did that with Julia.”

“Yeah, right,” says Kady, frowning. “God. But also, remembering being a cop is so fucked.”

Penny shakes his head. “What’s that thing? All cops are bitches,” he says, and she laughs, gently shoving at him with a shoulder.

“Bastards, asshole. All cops are bastards,” she says.

He taps his temple, like, _exactly. _

“Someone really wants to sleep on the couch tonight,” she says.

“Hey, I’m just telling my girlfriend something _she fucking agrees with—”_

Kady rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling. The baby needs resettling in her arms and she does it in a way that is becoming more and more competent, which Penny might give himself props for, but also Kady’s just good at most things near-immediately as long as you’re not talking feelings. Damn, if she had been the traveler, he’s convinced a lot of their shit would have been so much easier.

“Todd never explained how he intervened in the Fillory shit, either,” Kady says then.

Penny shakes his head. He wasn’t even fucking around for that? And any illuminating spoilers from the underworld are now inaccessible to him, the time seeming vaguely dreamlike, even though the life book shit didn’t work that way if you straight up got it from the library. Whatever.

“Todd showed up and shot the dude,” he says, not entirely clear on the sequence of events. “Like, immediately, right? And then there was some weird mist that he bottled up that was _a full god spirit?_”

Kady looks passingly concerned for a second. “You know, Eliot was actually going to do the same thing. He had this cute little pistol and everything. But then I guess it would have escaped since it needed to be trapped again?” she said. “No one told me that was their actual plan. If they had I would have said it was fucking stupid. Also, can you imagine Eliot _firing a gun,_ holy shit.”

“I literally can’t do that,” says Penny, shaking his head.

Kady smirks. “Physical kid or no, he’s a literal fucking kitten. Like, a really tall kitten.”

Penny laughs, and they’ve companionably broken apart. The sidewalk behind and in front of them is mostly empty and the sun is getting low; it had been a nice day outside and this feels good. But he doesn’t catch it when Kady starts to think of something else.

“Penny,” she says suddenly, in a way that makes him look up at her face. “Do you, uh, want kids?”

He blinks at her, and at the subject change. Well. So much for the decade out. And he doesn’t have his arm around her anymore, so he feels the distance.

“Um,” he says, rubbing his neck. “Yeah, I do. Eventually, though. Not right now.”

Kady nods once, ducking her head, thinking. She’s obviously looking at the baby; the little one’s fist is balled up next to her face and it’s fucking killer, it’s so cute.

“I might,” she says. “I don’t know...I kind of never thought I’d live to be fucking able to think about it, honestly.”

Penny shakes his head. He could say some useless but true shit like she would be a great mother (she would, especially if they were doing a double-hander—great as in a force to be reckoned with).

“Let’s wait a little while longer to talk about it,” he says. “Prove past-you wrong. Let’s both be alive a long fucking time, Kady.”

That was the right thing to say, he knows it when the light breaks on her face in her smile again, and she leans into him. “Sounds good to me,” she says, with a peck on his cheek.

“Also,” he says, “we’ll get to enjoy our hot childless youth for longer than _Eliot_ will. Shit.”

She shakes her head. “Why are you obsessed with fucking with him lately?”

Penny’s actually grinning really, really wide. “He’s so fuck-withable!”

They take the elevator back up to the penthouse, which feels empty enough—everyone else had talked about a shopping trip—that they settle in to watch Netflix. The next thing Penny knows, he’s being shaken awake by Quentin standing over them both, and when he blinks to clear his eyes he sees Kady’s head drooped on his shoulder, the baby sharing real estate on both of their legs, wrapped in a blanket over all of them.

“This is really cute, actually,” says Eliot, standing behind Quentin, sounding maybe annoyed by it.

“Hey,” says Penny, still half-asleep. “Fuck you. I told you I’m adorable.”

-

“We _do_ have to think of a name,” Eliot says.

“Yeah, we really do,” Quentin agrees, because everyone has started calling her Baby Margulia and he’s terrified it’s starting to stick.

“What about, um—” Eliot swallows, looks away. “What about...Theodora. You know, after...after your dad.”

Quentin feels like he’s about to weep, and also so angry he wants to break something. It’s a combo he’s really sick of feeling, and it’s always Eliot that seems to induce it. 

“Yeah, my dad, sure. That’s the only association with that name.”

Eliot flinches and Quentin just thinks _good, I want him to _feel_ it_. But then he’s the one feeling it, he can hear the sudden despair in his voice as he bursts out—

“I mean, for fuck’s sake Eliot. You’ve never. You’ve never mentioned him fucking _once_, not even when we told everyone about the key quest, but now you want to like, what, act like it’s 1605 and name kid number two after the first one who—” Quentin stops, mouth working, unable to actually say the word.

“Died?” Eliot spits it out. “That’s why I don’t—I can’t. I can’t. It’s like he died, but worse, so yeah, I don’t know how to talk about either of my _dead fucking kids_, Quentin.” 

Which, _God, _this is one of the worst things about loving someone, the way you can be furious one second and pulled up short by concern or tenderness in the next.

He’d forgotten about Eliot’s daughter, which is probably terrible of him, but Eliot hadn’t ever talked about her either. Had he, at the mosaic? Not exactly—they’d talked around it. They’d talked around a lot of things.

“Yeah, you—you never talked about her.”

Eliot shrugs and says in a careful voice, “It never felt like mine to talk about. I never—felt it, not the way Fen did. I hadn’t even come to terms with becoming a father before I wasn’t one anymore.”

“I know I can’t ask you to but I—” and Quentin can’t help but think of the last time he asked Eliot for something, and the how the failure of that is the reason he hasn’t been able to ask for this.

“I know you don’t—but Eliot, I feel like I’m going crazy, remembering them alone.” 

His voice cracks embarrassingly on the last word and he feels the tears finally come, fuck, and Eliot is turning to him in the same moment, and seeing the look on his face, and pulling him into a hug on instinct.

“So if we could talk about him sometimes, maybe,” he finishes, against Eliot’s shoulder.

“It’s not that I don’t—I do remember, Q,” and that’s not what Quentin had meant, he had meant to say _I know you don’t want to do it again_, but that thought is lost in how good it feels to fit his flushed wet face between Eliot’s neck and shoulder in search of comfort, to feel Eliot’s fingers stroking his hair. How desperate he’s been for it. It’s stupid, they fuck all the time, they touch all the time in a million different ways and contexts. Yet somehow this feels different.

After a long while, Eliot presses a kiss into his hair and says softly, “We can talk about him. I...it’s not easy. For me. But I miss him too. And. You shouldn’t be alone with this. You’re not. I’m here.”

Quentin feels something tight in his chest start to unwind itself, for the first time in a year.

“Okay,” he whispers.

-

Sometimes they’re all at the apartment at the same time, and they do what could only be called _hanging out_, which is really weird, but nice. It’s like being back at Brakebills, in those first few months when things were only mildly dramatic.

They’re theoretically researching spells to help them take down the Library (honestly, Quentin is so sick of the fucking Library, this is more of Alice and Kady and Penny’s thing) but really they’re sitting around the living room and drinking wine.

“Oh, so I was thinking about this earlier,” Margo says. “When’s Margulia’s birthday?”

Everyone pauses to think about it. The baby file Lipson has given them estimated her actual age was about three months, even though she hasn’t been here nearly that long.

“Are we going back three months from when she showed up, or are we going to go by…what are we calling it? The Spawning. The Arrival.”

Quentin gives her a look, but he can’t help but smile a little. “Jesus, Margo, you make it sound so sinister.”

“Well, what else are you supposed to call it when a baby magically appears into existence but isn’t a newborn? Three months before she _arrived _was what, March?” 

“I don’t think she’s a Pisces,” Quentin mutters before he can stop himself.

Complete silence, then…

“What’s wrong with Pisces?” Alice asks, dryly amused.

“Yeah, what the hell, man. I’m a Pisces,” Penny adds, clearly not actually offended.

“Nothing is_ wrong_…with…I. It’s just not…”

“It’s not what?”

“It’s not her….vibe?” Quentin says, like it’s a question.

Eliot had been mostly ignoring the conversation, as he held the baby while she napped, but unfortunately for Quentin, was obviously paying at least some attention. He slowly turns towards Quentin, shifting the baby in his arms. “I’m sorry…her what?”

Pinned under Eliot’s gaze, Quentin looks around for help, and finds none. He has no choice but to face Eliot and meet his eyes. He crosses his arms.

“Vibe,” he says again, more confident this time.

Eliot nods. “Mhmm. I see. And when, may I ask, did you suddenly become the kind of person who has opinions on the _vibes _of _Pisces_?”

“Oh boy,” Quentin hears Julia come up behind him, having walked back into the room after she’d gone to get another bottle of wine, to hear this last part, “Is Q’s astrology nerd phase coming back with a vengeance?”

Eliot looks absolutely delighted and Quentin wants to crawl into a hole and never come out.

“Okay, it wasn’t a big deal,” he tries to protest, but of course, is ignored.

“Julia, wonderful Julia,” Eliot practically sings, holding out one hand to her, “Please tell me more about this _astrology nerd phase_ of which you speak.”

Julia laughs and comes to sit down on the couch next to him. “Yeah, we were both really into it. I think we were like, thirteen? Q read like ten astrology books in a row, and we would cut out the horoscopes from magazines and read them to each other and I saved the good ones for my scrapbook…it’s silly, obviously, but it was fun. We did Tarot and palm reading, too.”

Eliot is staring at him and doing the thing he does where he’s so pleased by what he’s hearing that he’s kind of like, wiggling in his seat a little. Quentin usually loves when Eliot is like this, loves being on the receiving end of all of Eliot’s attention and having Eliot be so focused on him…it feels amazing. Usually.

“That is,” Eliot says, condescending yet somehow completely sincere in that way he always is about Quentin, “_so cute_.”

_Thanks a lot, Jules, _Quentin thinks at her as she catches his eye, and she smiles and shrugs a little. _Sorry_.

No one else seems to care as much about Quentin’s sordid astrology past and are still back on the previous topic of conversation.

“Babies do not have vibes,” Kady is insisting.

“I disagree, this baby has okay vibes, for a baby,” is Margo’s opinion.

“Thank you, Bambi, that’s very sweet of you to say,” Eliot says, smiling down at the baby, still asleep in his arms. “Q, will you still love our daughter even if she’s a Pisces?”

“Oh my god,” Quentin groans.

-

Considering their below-zero level of, what, _emotional intimacy, _it takes Eliot acting pretty fucking weird before Quentin has to burst out: “Eliot, what the fuck is going _on?_”

Over the course of the day, Eliot’s roped him into about ten false-start conversation attempts (maybe a small exaggeration, but look, it feels true) where Eliot suddenly, what, thinks of a chore he has to or wants to do, or he just asks something about the baby.

Quentin constantly feels like he’s losing his mind lately, in a different way than he had acclimated to in his life, but today, _he might actually lose his mind _if Eliot one more time comes up and says,_ “Hey, Quentin,”_ clearly meaning business and then suddenly listing things he wants to make for dinner during the week.

Eliot is posted up in bed with the baby in his arms, shoes off but still in his clothes like he hasn’t given up the ghost of their day even though it’s past their post-baby bedtime. And when Quentin speaks, Eliot blinks up at him.

With fifty years of experience under his belt, Quentin sees the moment where Eliot totally understands exactly what he means, and then ignores it.

“Nothing, Q,” he says, but it sounds a little fragile, surprisingly. “I’m just, uh, tired. Sorry.”

There’s a genuine truth there that softens Quentin a bit, makes him sit on the end of the bed at Eliot’s feet. Then, he sighs.

“Can we not just...have a normal goddamn conversation?” Quentin asks. “For once?”

And it’s not a trick of the light to think that Eliot maybe looks a little stricken. “Do we not, Q?” he asks, and Quentin’s chest squeezes. “Every day? Shit. I...”

Whatever his thought is trails off. Quentin feels like an asshole. It had been slightly unfair to say, though not in every way possible. Eliot was, of course, wonderful at communicating around what their baby needed. Communicating _about_ the baby, being casually affectionate about her constantly, constantly.

And even after everything, Quentin still. Well, he liked hanging out with Eliot. He liked when they talked. And they did talk. It just, you know.

“Sorry,” Quentin says. “I’m sorry. I’m, I’m so fucking tired, too.”

“No, uh,” Eliot says, and he laughs, a little, sounding a bit uncertain. “No, you’re right, I was thinking about something. It’s just. Embarrassing?”

Quentin raises his brows at him, mild but waiting.

“Her name,” Eliot says. “Um. I’ve been thinking about her name.”

Quentin’s eyes narrow, and surprisingly, it’s not without humor. “You think thinking about our daughter’s name is _embarrassing?_” he says, finding that he’s smiling, because it’s ridiculous. Eliot’s ridiculous.

“No, what the hell,” Eliot says, bewildered and sitting up a little bit even though this is a totally fair Eliot Depiction, but he’s still careful not to wake their daughter, the movement of his arms practiced. “No, just—Look. I, um. I wanted to—”

And Quentin feels a stillness in himself at how earnest Eliot’s hesitation is. Eliot isn’t looking at him, like he is thinking very hard of how to proceed, like there are landmines where they are.

“Fillory was so important to you,” says Eliot, which is not where Quentin expected the sentence to go at all. “Right? The books, I mean, not the fucked-up place, though I guess, uh. That’s important, too.”

“Yeah. You know. They saved my life and they were written by a rapist,” says Quentin.

Eliot unexpectedly smiles, even if it’s grim. “Quentin. The people he wrote about were real people. They were good people, I guess, before he fucked them up and Fillory in the real world fucked them up, too. And you really loved it growing up?”

Quentin isn’t sure where Eliot is going with this; he just nods, watching him. They both know he loved Fillory. Loves Fillory, maybe; it’s hard to tell now.

“And we both know I never read it,” Eliot adds, with a brow raise at him.

Quentin’s brows just raise, like, _get to your point. _This definitely amuses Eliot more than any screed he would have given just a year or two ago.

“Aw, Q, proud of you for not murdering me for that in cold blood in front of our child,” Eliot says, his grin wide, and Quentin rolls his eyes and shakes his head as he looks away, not at all unfond.

“It’s fine,” Quentin says, sighing a little. “I’ve got Margo to be the nerd between the two of you.”

“Oh, you absolutely do,” says Eliot, smiling, looking down like he’s just looking at their little girl. Quentin looks down at her, too, for a minute.

“What were you trying to say, El?” he asks.

Eliot almost grimaces, in a way that seems very, Quentin doesn’t know, open? Maybe? And he sighs.

“Fine, I’ll cut my shit,” he says. “So. I looked on Wikipedia for names. It can’t be Jane because, like, it can’t be. My baby isn’t the Watcher Woman. Also that’s incredibly pedestrian in terms of naming her for _Fillory_ the books, and obviously our baby will not be _pedestrian_. And the other brother’s name we haven’t done would be really fucking macabre, even if we didn’t want to technically christen her as the Beast?”

Quentin’s mouth has fallen open, so if Eliot is expecting him to, like, banter back—?

“But, um,” Eliot continues instead, “their mother’s name was Helen? Is that right? And you know, I really like the name Helena. But it could be Helen, too, I just, I guess I don’t think that has the same—”

Quentin kisses him.

It takes some doing even though it feels like he’s obeying a law of gravity, pushing himself up on the bed from his position, leaning with one knee between Eliot’s legs. Eliot still doesn’t see it coming, adorably preoccupied with what Quentin only dimly realizes is his own nervousness at his suggestion. Holy shit, Eliot had been unable to spit _this _out? When it’s like an apology letter for their first conversation about this? When it’s so obviously what they’re going to do?

And he smiles, into Eliot’s mouth, his breath hitching a little when he says, “Did Wikipedia say, uh,” and he peck’s Eliot’s mouth, quickly, “their mother tells them magic is real before anything happens? Before they even go to their aunt and uncle’s?”

Eliot’s got the most surprised, dazed look on his face, and he shakes his head.

“Yeah,” says Quentin, and then he kisses Eliot’s cheeks, his forehead, a little helplessly.

But the baby very blatantly stirs between them, _still in Eliot’s arms, _with the beginning of the thought to wake up, and, oh shit. Oh, wow, Quentin is a dumbass.

They both freeze, looking at each other, faces close, _very specifically_ not moving. The baby resettles herself, delicate, against Eliot’s chest, with the smallest sigh. Then her breathing, which would be terrifyingly small if this was Quentin’s first go-around, evens again.

They both let out a breath, and Eliot leans his forehead against Quentin’s, grinning, his eyes closed. Quentin’s eyes close, too, and he feels so light.

“Rookie mistake, darling,” Eliot says. Without looking in his eyes, with their little girl in his arms, Quentin can’t tell who he means to name.

Then when Eliot pulls away, just, it makes Quentin open his eyes. “So, she’s Helena?” Eliot asks, like there’s a question.

Quentin can’t fucking believe him. “Yeah, _Helena_,” he says, shaking his head a little. And he ducks his head, to look at her. “Hi, Helena,” he says, the feeling in his chest impossibly big.

“Oh, Helena says hi back,” says Eliot, easily, and Quentin laughs in a way that could become tearful.

But Eliot is grinning so wide when he looks back up at him. Then he shifts her between them, and Quentin used to be in awe when he did this with Teddy, too; he was so good at getting him to sleep and getting him to stay asleep. But Eliot is shifting her so that he can lift his hand to Quentin’s neck, kiss him again in a way that feels like a kiss for its own sake, just for that moment.

“Q,” he says, when they break off, tenderly close still. “Q, uh. I’m about to ask you, maybe, _the_ most important question I’ve ever asked you—“

And Quentin, for some reason, laughs. “Uh-huh?” he says.

“Do, do you happen to know,” and Eliot pecks Quentin’s mouth like he is giving back the same sort of kiss that Quentin had given him, “if Penny’s home?”

Quentin laughs harder, only gentling it as not to wake their daughter, hands somehow landing on Eliot’s shoulders when they kiss again, when they again press their foreheads together.

So he can’t even protest when Eliot says, “Hold this thought.”

Quentin feels buzzingly alive, grinning like, he doesn’t even know what to compare this to. The first time he and Julia got drunk together, he thinks suddenly, with bizarre specificity. And it all feels so—it feels normal and good, the lamp by the bed they’ve been sharing making the room warm, the penthouse beyond oddly quiet even though it’s early.

When the door opens again, Eliot is beatifically smiling, and not holding their baby, whose name is Helena.

“So let’s be clear,” Eliot says, loosening a tie he was wearing, taking it off. “You _liked_ my idea, hm?”

Quentin nods, managing a more sober face to indicate seriousness.

“So, we’ve finally fucking named the baby,” continues Eliot, like they still need to review, and specifically review his successes. “Her name is Helena. And you like it. And you, uh, _really_ liked my idea. I would say a, hmm, not-normal amount.”

And Quentin is shaking his head, incredibly annoyed and in love at once. “Take off your clothes, shithead,” he says.

Eliot’s face is almost too bright to look at, and his shirt is on the floor in a heap that always used to strike Quentin as uncharacteristically thoughtless, for Eliot with his own _things_, and it’s always so gratifying.

“Oh, Q,” Eliot says, as if disappointed, pulling his belt out of the loops of his pants. “Not even a ‘please’ for daddy?”

“_Jesus fucking Christ_, that is how you don’t get laid tonight,” says Quentin, but he’s laughing.

Eliot laughs and laughs too in his delight, and Quentin realizes with a start that he rarely gets to really look at Eliot naked unless it’s after they fuck, not just since the baby has exhausted them but since this whole whatever started happening, because it’s always on the edge of some desperation or another.

Recently it’s gotten a little weirder, Quentin assuming and also remembering this is the case because of new-parent logistics. Except that the logistics of, you know, Eliot suddenly jerking him off in the kitchen in broad daylight were not particularly smart. (Eliot had seemed almost disappointed when they’d just gotten away with it, the penthouse empty.)

But this is so not _weird,_ it feels so good that it’s not weird, and so indulgent to see the slope of Eliot’s chest, the hair there, where Eliot’s hips dip in his skin like arrows down. And for all of the tricks up Eliot’s sleeve that he had been eager to show Quentin, once, maybe nothing was hotter than this, actually? Eliot naked in gentle light, grinning like he wasn’t thinking of putting on a show.

Then he takes a step toward the bed, then another, his posture like he might have been approaching to tell Quentin a secret, then his mouth is on Quentin’s and he is pressing him into the bed, down on his back.

“Our baby,” Eliot breathes close to his mouth, and it must be that the part of his brain that knows that this is fucking weird and unfair just short circuits, and Quentin moans like it’s never been complicated.

And he can’t think of anything, anything at all, when he sees the flash of even-wider grin that gets him before Eliot draws down to sink his teeth in his neck and, holy shit.

Eliot works him open with his fingers, no spell, and a lot of _praise, _it makes Quentin feel like he’s unstuck in time because they don’t do this shit anymore, maybe? They don’t. But above him Eliot is saying, “That’s it, Q,” like he’s fascinated when the sensation crests for a second and Quentin’s panting catches, then it becomes a shaking groan at Eliot fucking _talking_.

And Eliot just grins down at him unsteadily, nodding a little like Quentin had said something to agree with. Quentin’s eyes flutter, his hips jerking up.

“Gonna come like this?” Eliot is breathing hard, too, just from touching him and Quentin can hardly focus to feel smug about it, so scattered by everything. “Just my fingers?”

His body betrays him and shudders almost convulsively, and Eliot’s laugh is so light, breathless, it’s almost that he _giggles._ But Quentin shakes his head then with some urgency, and he almost whimpers, “_No_—“

And for once, that’s all Eliot needs to know what he wants.

And Eliot’s lightness belies how time expands, him pushing his cock slowly into Quentin, gripping his legs up while Quentin nods drunkenly until his head tips back, like Eliot is answering a question. And Quentin feels like his eyes might roll, it’s so good, but Eliot is panting above him and takes his chin to bring their faces back together, to _watch _him.

When he holds his gaze, Eliot grips his face and just, they look at each other, breathing hard, close. Then Eliot’s hand slides to his neck, wraps at his throat and squeezes gently, tenderly, suddenly tipping the world away from Quentin, and still he takes his time and takes and takes and—

Eliot finally reaches for Quentin’s cock between their bellies and barely has form a fist around it before Quentin is shuddering hard again, helpless, but Eliot isn’t finished when he comes. And Quentin can’t think of how precarious it is, how the words he can’t say to Eliot are so far up his throat, close to coming out when they kiss open-mouthed right before Eliot stops moving, the both of them spent, sweaty, panting into each other.

Eliot is nearly limp on top of him, already coherent enough to give him another shaky, pleased-with-himself smile, and it makes Quentin’s heart stutter. And then that smile melts into gentle, clear confusion when Quentin is for once the one who urges him up, their bodies easing apart by necessity so Quentin can wrap around his back, so Quentin can hold him.

Quentin presses his face down next to the knobs of Eliot’s spine, his body curved low around Eliot’s, and closes his eyes.

“Q, I have to go get Helena,” Eliot whispers, like they have been calling her that since she came to them, and Quentin can’t read anything in his tone. Maybe couldn’t if he wanted to.

Quentin has a reply, definitely, he does. “Mmph,” is maybe what comes out of his mouth instead, squeezing closer, and Eliot just lets him until he falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter ended up being kind of a beast! We do not anticipate having as long a gap in posting time before chapter 3. Thanks so much for all your comments on part 1! Reading them truly made us excited to keep working on this crazy fic.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Julia and Eliot go shopping, Margo seeks advice from the Internet, the Baba Yaga does not want to meet Josh, and Helena becomes a fan of Taylor Swift.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’re back! Thanks so much for all your comments and support on this journey.

“Helena,” Julia says, and Quentin can’t stop smiling. “It’s really pretty. Where’d you guys come up with it?”

Quentin suddenly feels shy about it, like what happened between him and Eliot when they named their daughter is too private to share, even with Julia. But people are going to ask, and it’s not like it’s a secret, right?

“Um, you know how the Chatwins’ mother is named Helen?” He’s not sure why he’s saying it like a question, obviously Julia knows.

She just smiles though, and says, “Of course. Well, I like it. It’s very you.” 

Quentin could just leave it there, but it feels...unfair somehow, so he tentatively continues, “Actually, it was Eliot’s idea.” 

“Really? I thought he’d never read the books,” Julia says, surprised.

“He hasn’t,” Quentin says, his heart beating fast for some reason he can’t figure out, “He um. He looked it up, because he wanted to...he said he wanted to find a name from Fillory, because he knows how important it is to me.”

Julia...looks stunned for a second, then she clears her throat and says, “Q, that’s...I mean…”

There’s a moment where he thinks she’s going to say something different, as she looks at him carefully, but then what comes out is, “it’s just...really beautiful. I’m happy for you.”

She’s still looking at him strangely, and Quentin knows there’s something she’s not saying, and he thinks he’d rather not know what it is.

“Thanks, Jules. Sorry we didn’t name her Margulia after all,” he jokes.

Julia shrugs. “Eh, it’s okay. You guys can get me on the next one.”

_Oh_. “I don’t…think that’s going to happen.”

Julia gives him this look like _okay, come on_, but he’s serious.

“I’m pretty sure Eliot doesn’t want that,” Quentin says, and he realizes how that sounds, _Eliot _doesn’t want that, not _I don’t want that_, but it’s too late to take it back.

“Are you sure? He’s amazing with her,” Julia says.

As though Quentin doesn’t know that, as if he hadn’t thought about it every day since the baby arrived, and every day before that, fifty years worth of memories to pick from, like that’s not one of the reasons Quentin loves—“He is. But, well, he didn’t exactly ask for this.”

“Q,” Julia sighs, exasperated, like this is a conversation they’ve had a million times before. “This is just stuff you have to work out when you’re, you know, dating someone.”

“We’re not dating,” Quentin says.

Julia nods, “Right, right, of course not. You’re sleeping together.”

It’s not a question. He figures there’s no point in trying to deny it anymore, everyone knows. Quentin decides to let what he thinks of as an articulate silence answer for him and oh God, Julia has raised one finger, she’s going to start ticking things off.

“You magically created his baby. You are now raising that baby. Together.”

“That’s not...he’s not…” Quentin starts and stops, because yeah, they are…doing that. But.

Julia just waits, eyebrows raised.

“He’s not…he’s just doing that because—“

“Because…why? Are you saying that _Eliot_ is _raising a baby with you_, and chose to _name that baby after a character in your favorite books_, to be…what, polite?” Julia says incredulously, “You know him…_a lot_ better than I do, but that doesn’t sound like him.”

Quentin sighs and impatiently pushes his hair behind his ear. It’s still too short to really stay there and it just falls back in his face. “No, not like. I just mean, I was obviously going to keep her no matter what, and he’s a good…friend, so—”

Julia lets out a little laugh, one that Quentin recognizes as the one where she’s about to tell him he’s a complete idiot, but like, nicely, because she’s Julia.

“Q. I’m your friend, I’ve been your friend longer than anyone, and I love you to death, but I’m not raising a baby with you. I mean, I guess we’re all helping out, but you and Eliot, you’re her _parents_. It’s a big deal.”

It is a big deal. It’s everything—almost everything, it’s enough—to him. But it doesn’t mean that Eliot…

“I…friends can…raise a baby together, Jules, don’t be…heteronormative.”

_What? _Quentin’s not sure where he is going with this.

Julia rolls her eyes. “Really? Okay, okay, sorry, my mistake for thinking maybe the people raising a baby while also sleeping together, exclusively, are more than friends. Silly me.”

“How do you know it’s exclusively?” Quentin says, which is so stupid, he knows, but arguing with Julia does this to him, makes him feel like he’s 14 years old again, being contrary just because, as his only defense.

“Oh, it’s not?” Julia scoffs. “You want to tell me when I’m supposed to believe either of you have time to be off fucking other people when you’re either _raising your baby_, trying to stop the Library from taking over the world, or _having a lot of sex together_, which believe me, we all know when and how often that is happening. Really not seeing any room for random hookups in the schedule, it’s pretty busy.”

Quentin shrugs. “Okay, so…we’re…raising a baby and…the other stuff. Maybe it’s not typical, but it works, right? Who cares?”

Julia makes a noise like _hm_ and shrugs too, almost like she’s conceding, but. “Yeah, I guess that’s fair…except…oh, I forgot, there’s one more thing.”

She raises another finger. Quentin looks away, because he can tell, he’s not going to like this next one.

“You’re in love with him,” Julia says. Again, it’s not a question.

He’s never been good at flat out lying to Julia, so he doesn’t.

She reaches out and puts a hand on his arm after a long silence. Not pressuring him, just waiting, until he’s ready to say something.

“It um,” Quentin says, trying to swallow around the sudden lump in his throat. “It doesn’t matter.”

Julia squeezes his arm, tight, and her voice is concerned now, which makes Quentin feel like shit; she’s always having to worry about him. “Q, of course it matters. How could it not matter? Why don’t you just _talk _to him—”

It’s Quentin’s turn to laugh now, and he scrubs a hand across his face, suddenly so tired. “I did.”

“Wait, when?”

“When we…got back. From the other timeline. I remembered, we both remembered, everything, and I. I wanted to do it again. I asked him to…_god_ I’m so fucking stupid—”

“Hey!” Julia says sharply, and Quentin turns to her, surprised. “Stop it. You’re not stupid. That was really brave, and it’s not stupid. I’m proud of you.”

Quentin pathetically feels sharp tears pricking at the corner of his eyes, feels his face crumple a little bit, and it’s so embarrassing, even though it’s Julia, she’s seen him cry countless times, over the most ridiculous things, but. He doesn’t want to cry about this, not again.

“I don’t know,” he shrugs, voice tight. “Eliot seemed to think it was pretty stupid. He didn’t even…he didn’t even think about it. He just…said I wouldn’t…we wouldn’t choose each other. And I just let him.”

Julia reaches up and strokes his hair back from his face, then repeats the gesture a few times. It’s soothing, it always has been, when Julia does this, but it also makes him feel…vulnerable and too open, like there’s nowhere he can hide from her, because he’s safe. It’s kind of funny, but not really, that the only other person who has ever made him feel this way is Eliot.

“I’m sorry. That sucks,” Julia says, simply, and it’s the best thing she could say, because really…what else is there.

Quentin lets out a pained but genuine laugh. Just _telling someone, _having someone else know, almost makes it a little easier to think about. “Yeah. It does.”

Julia pulls him into a hug, and he lets himself rest his head on her shoulder for a little while, feeling so relieved to have finally told her, wishing he’d done it sooner.

“Want me to kick his ass for you?” Julia whispers into his ear after a while, and Quentin laughs again, and it hurts less than before.

“Maybe I’ll take you up on that some time,” he says, as he pulls away. “Rain check?”

Julia holds out her hand and Quentin shakes it. “Okay, it’s a deal.”

Quentin’s about to get up because it’s time for Helena to eat, when Julia reaches out and places her hand on his arm again.

“Hey,” she says, and Quentin turns to look at her. “I’m not trying to tell you what to do, because god knows that always works out so well, but, Q. From my perspective? It seems like you guys are choosing each other, like, in a lot of ways. So maybe…think about that, okay?”

Quentin doesn’t know what to say, and it turns out he doesn’t have to say anything, because Julia just pats his cheek and gets up and leaves him alone to sit with…all of that, and then Helena’s crying, right on cue, time for dinner.

-

Now that they have confirmation that baby Margulia—oops, Helena, is definitely a normal baby and is going to be growing like a normal baby, Eliot decides he wants to go shopping for “real” clothes. Up until now, she’s been wearing whatever random stuff they could find on Amazon and get with one-day delivery, but obviously that’s not going to stand.

“Lipson didn’t say she was _normal, _Lipson said she was _perfect,_” Eliot had insisted multiple times after their visit to Brakebills, which made everyone roll their eyes, but Julia had to admit she thought it was sweet, and Quentin, based on the look on his face, thought was the most wonderful thing he’d ever heard in his life. But that’s also just always how he looks at Eliot now. It’s a little bit of a second-hand embarrassment situation for Julia, as his best friend, because it’s just. _So _obvious, and she’s not sure he knows that.

But. Anyway.

Eliot’s _perfect _daughter needs the _perfect _wardrobe and he’s planned a very serious shopping outing. Margo has been enlisted to go along, and Quentin has been strictly forbidden to, which he had made a little show of being offended by, but Julia can tell that Eliot fondly teasing him about his lack of fashion sense is the highlight of Quentin’s day. He just like, lights up whenever Eliot so much as looks at him. 

“Damn, he’s really got it bad, huh,” Kady comments idly, as she passes by while Julia’s watching this all unfold from a distance. “I mean, not that it wasn’t already obvious from the whole baby situation, but.”

“Yep,” Julia says, with a hard pop on the _p_. She sighs. None of this makes any sense. Why would Eliot ever turn Q down when they’re just so obviously…like this.

“Not really sure who they’re trying to fool with the whole ‘it’s casual’ thing,” Kady says, like she’s reading Julia’s mind, which actually happens a lot with them. Best bitches, and all that.

Julia can only shake her head and Kady laughs a little and pats her shoulder sympathetically.

So, anyway, Eliot’s planning the shopping trip of the century, and somehow Julia ends up with an invitation?

Eliot manages to tear himself away from flirting with Q to walk over to her and look her up and down with an appraising look in his eye.

“Uh, hi?” she says, giving a little wave.

Eliot nods, as if she’d asked him a question. “Okay, yes. I like what you have going on here.”

He gestures vaguely at her, and Julia realizes he means her clothes, or she thinks he does, anyway.

She looks down at herself. “Thanks?”

Eliot nods. “It’s very _The Good Wife _meets _New Girl_, like a quirky baby lawyer, but in a good way. Consider this your official invitation to the shopping excursion, if you’re interested. I need a sensible voice of reason to provide perspective. Bambi and I can go overboard, occasionally.”

Julia had agreed and Eliot had floated off somewhere else before she even really processed what was happening. Even though she has enough distance from Eliot to not be completed dazzled by his charms like…some other people she could name…she is weirdly flattered by the whole thing.

Plus, she figures that she does owe it to Q to make sure that Eliot and Margo don’t go _too _overboard with the clothes. Julia has better fashion sense that Q (at least she hopes so, god, but Eliot obviously agrees, or he wouldn’t have invited her in the first place) but she also knows him and thinks she can sort of sense the maybe, spirit of what he might like, just in a better physical form.

-

Margo backs out of the shopping trip at the last minute, with some hurried excuse that Fen needs her back in Fillory for some emergency involving the talking llamas, or maybe it was lemurs, who knows with Fillory. And, it turns out, Margo can’t remember if it was llamas or lemurs either, because the whole thing was a hasty excuse to leave Eliot and Julia alone for an extended period of time.

“Look, I love him more than anything, but he’s driving me _fucking insane_,” Margo whispers to her in the hallway. “I can’t deal with this whole ‘oh Q and I are just friends who casually fuck all the time’ thing anymore. Maybe you can talk some sense into him.”

“You think he’ll listen to _me_?” Julia laughs, doubtful.

Margo gives her a look, and then glances around to make sure they’re still alone. “Okay, do not ever tell him I told you this, because I don’t think he knows I know, but El is lowkey terrified of you and actually desperate for your approval.”

Julia has to laugh again, this time in shock. “_What_?”

“Oh yeah,” Margo nods, “I mean, think about it. You’re Quentin’s oldest friend, he doesn’t really have any family worth a shit, alive anyway. He trusts you more than anyone. You’re like, the one El would go to if he was gonna ask for little Q’s hand in marriage, you know what I mean?”

Julia knows Margo means this in more of a metaphorical sense. But also the actual thought of it is really sweet? Antiquated, sure, but you know what, anyone who wants a shot with Q _should _care about her blessing, actually.

“Plus, you’re this incredibly powerful, mysterious almost-goddess who isn’t easily impressed by him or anyone. So yeah, ‘make a move, dipshit’ probably means more coming from you than it does from me, here,” Margo concludes.

Julia’s not sure about that. Eliot had been visibly disappointed that Margo was bailing on the trip, and had even suggested rescheduling, but Margo had just yelled something about how the llama, or lemur, or whatever, conflict may be an ongoing situation, so they should probably just go without her, before disappearing into the clock.

“It’s not like the first significant clothes purchase for my child is an important moment I wanted to share with my best friend, but okay, _fine,_” Eliot had yelled back, even though she was already gone. And then he’d sighed dramatically and looked at Julia and said, “okay, let’s go, I guess.”

So, that doesn’t really inspire much confidence that they’d be having a heart-to-heart where Eliot confessed his feelings for Q and they come up with a big romantic gesture, or whatever Margo is envisioning.

They chat casually about Helena, of course, and what’s going on with the Library, and Julia mentions she’s been thinking about getting bangs, an idea Eliot quickly vetoes. It’s not exactly awkward? They’ve spent enough time around each other now that the tension that defined their early relationship—and well, all of Julia’s relationships with Quentin’s friends—has eased. They’ve never really been _close_, though, and she thinks this will be the first time they’ve ever been alone for this long.

Eliot has a list of places to hit, all of them cute little boutique shops, which makes sense. Julia can’t really picture Eliot willingly going to a department store, but she may try to talk him into Target, because the clothes are really cute, plus she just remembered she’s out of tampons, so might as well be efficient about it.

Thankfully, they are actually on the same page about the clothes. The first place they go is definitely upscale, but it’s not overly trendy or fussy.

“What do you think of this?” Eliot asks, after a few minutes of browsing in silence. He gestures to a navy dress with vertical stripes. “I can’t decide if it’s cute or too…”

“Nautical?” they say in unison. Eliot smiles at her, surprised in a good way, and she smiles back.

“I mean, maybe you should get it, you know how much Q loves boats, right?”

Eliot’s face’s does something Julia can’t quite describe. He almost flinches, like he put his hand on a hot stove, like he’s surprised by whatever thought just crossed his mind. For a second, Julia, with whatever leftover goddess sixth sense that’s still floating around inside her, just _knows _that he’s overwhelmed by _something _she can’t quite…

“Let’s call this one a ‘maybe’ and come back to it,” Eliot says, voice strained, and before Julia can answer, an obnoxiously chipper voice pipes up behind them.

“Are you two finding everything okay?”

Julia and Eliot turn around to see a perky blonde woman standing there expectantly. She smiles eagerly at them and says, “Oh, aren’t you a lovely couple! When are you due?”

Eliot shoots Julia a comically bewildered look, before turning back to the woman. “Uh, sorry, we’re not…”

“It’s not my, I mean, we’re shopping for…it’s his baby, she’s a few months old, I’m just…the aunt, I guess,” Julia says in a rush.

The woman doesn’t miss a beat. “Well, isn’t that sweet of you! It looks like you’ve picked some lovely items already, but please do let me know if you need any assistance. My name is Cheryl, by the way.”

Eliot nods, still looking baffled, and Julia says, “okay, thanks!” and then Eliot takes her elbow and smoothly guides her around a display and towards the other side of the store, away from Cheryl’s perma-bright smile. The store isn’t very big so like, she’s still just right over there, but she’s directed her attention to some other couple who have just wandered in, so it’s safe for now.

“Well, that was weird,” Julia laughs.

“Yeah, not exactly on my list of things I thought would ever happen to me, ‘get mistaken for half of a hetero couple in a baby boutique,’” Eliot agrees. “I guess…I never thought I’d have kids, in general, though, so…”

“And now you’re doing it for the second time.” It is surprising, every time Julia thinks about it. A whole other life. People she’ll never meet. Quentin’s _son_. What must it feel like, to carry that around with you all the time.

Eliot also seems surprised, and he doesn’t say anything in response.

“Sorry, if you know, you don’t want to talk about that,” Julia feels the need to apologize, because seeing Eliot at such a loss for words is so foreign to her, she’s not used to this side of him.

“No, it’s fine…it’s good,” Eliot takes a breath. “It’s just weird…I’m still not used to, um. People knowing. About Teddy.”

Julia nods and thinks again about how different their lives are from when she’d first met Eliot, when they’d come to Marina’s place for the stolen book, and he’d just been Q’s Brakebills friend who stared at her, disdainful and suspicious, the entire time, like he was displeased to have to share Q’s attention with someone else.

“Thanks for inviting me today,” Julia says, as they continue to browse. “Okay, hold on, Helena will look _so cute _in those.”

Eliot shoots her a look before pointedly turning back to the various baby accessories on the back wall, including a lot of giant headbands and bows, which Julia can already tell are a necessary purchase.

“Sure,” he shrugs. “I mean, yes, Helena will look amazing in headbands, and we’re buying them all. But…I guess…you’re welcome?”

“It’s just, you know, we didn’t always get along so well,” Julia says, and she laughs when Eliot looks like he’s going to protest. “What? It’s fine. I know you didn’t like me.”

“No, I liked you,” Eliot lies, almost convincingly.

“Right, so I guess you just called me ‘hedge bitch’ all the time as what, a cute, friendly nickname?” Julia scoffs.

Eliot looks like he’s about to apologize, which is so not even the point here.

Julia rolls her eyes. “Eliot, it’s okay. I’m not offended. You all clearly hated me.”

“We didn’t _hate _you, it was just…”

“Just what?”

“Well, maybe if you hadn’t almost killed Q with that fucking _mind prison_ because your feelings were hurt you didn’t get to go to Brakebills…I met you _one time_, and you guys got in a little fight and you’re supposedly his best friend, then the next thing I know…” Eliot finally snaps, and then immediately looks regretful.

Julia smiles. There it is.

Then…she clears her throat and she feels her smile fades a bit. “Look, I wasn’t a very good friend to Q back then. I would’ve hated me too, if I were you. So, thank you. For taking care of him when I couldn’t.”

Eliot presses his lips together and fiddles with the gauzy flower on the baby headband closest to him. He doesn’t say anything.

“And,” Julia adds, gently, trying not to freak him out. “I’m glad we’re friends now, too.”

Eliot nods and clears his throat. “Yeah. Me too.”

She reaches out and squeezes his shoulder, just once, and then says, all business, “Okay, which of these can we absolutely not live without?”

They stock up on accessories and tiny little baby shoes, and then head to the next place. They do not end up buying the “too nautical” dress.

As they’re walking, shopping bags in hand, Julia feels like maybe if there’s any time Eliot might open up to her, it would be now. She almost hates to do this to him, after witnessing how skittish he is at the mere mention of talking about his emotions, but. He’ll thank her later.

Part of her wants to just drop a _Q is in love with you and he told me himself, so just go talk to him about it, _into the conversation and have that be that, but…it’s not really her place to say. It’s something that Q deserves to say to Eliot himself, and Eliot deserves to hear it from Q.

She hasn’t even told Margo everything Q had said, especially the part about Eliot turning him down, because she’s not sure if Eliot has told Margo, and she knows Margo will be rightfully pissed if the first person she hears it from is _Julia_. It’s not her place there, either.

All she can do is set them up for success.

“So, as your friend,” Julia says, nonchalant as possible, “I have to ask you something. How are things with you and Q?”

Eliot, to his credit, barely misses a beat. Only a slight twitch of his shoulders indicates there’s even anything loaded about that question.

“Well, as _your _friend, thank you so much for the concern,” Eliot says, his voice steady. “But we’re doing fine. Sleep deprived and stressed out, but it’s much easier the second time around.”

That’s not what she meant, and Eliot knows that.

“Why?” he asks after a second. “Hasn’t Q told you…I mean, did he say something to indicate we’re _not_ doing fine?”

_Oh honey, _Julia thinks, and in her head it sounds like Margo at her most gently condescending, when she’s really just so sad for you.

“Nope, nothing like that. But you know Q,” Julia shrugs. “Who knows what’s going on in that mysterious little head of his. He hasn’t really told me a lot, honestly.”

That’s…not exactly true, as she knows there’s still so much Q hasn’t said, but he _has_ told her about some things she thinks Eliot would rather she not know about. But playing naïve here has its advantages. Eliot, for his part, is doing his best to look unbothered by the whole thing.

They arrive at the next store, and Julia waits until they’re inside to start the conversation again. She picks up a shopping basket and follows Eliot.

“So, anyway, I was just thinking,” Julia murmurs, her voice pitched low as they wander around. “You two are…co-parenting? But as friends?”

Eliot stops in his tracks and tries to cover for it by acting like he’s suddenly really interested in the ‘pop culture’ clothes section of the store.

“If that’s what Q told you, I would say that’s accurate,” he finally says.

Julia rolls her eyes behind his back. Really?

“That is, essentially, what he said, yes,” she agrees. _Essentially _is doing a lot of work for her, here. It’s not technically a lie. “Which, is, you know, completely valid. Just wondering if you guys have thought about the logistics of the whole thing, though.”

Eliot glances at her and then looks away. “I think we have it worked out pretty well.”

“Oh, you do,” Julia assures him. “For now.”

She lets that sink for a second before continuing. “I mean, think about it. Are you guys just always going to live together in the penthouse with all of us?”

“I don’t…I guess not,” Eliot says, his brow furrowed with what looks like the beginning of worry.

“What if one of you wants to move out? Or both of you? You’re just going to move into another place together, as friends?”

Eliot’s hands are resting on the table in front of him, and he’s staring down at them, carefully still.

“Well, maybe you guys should start thinking about it. Do you have a custody agreement worked out?”

At this, Eliot’s head jerks up and he turns to look at her, his eyes wide and more vulnerable than she’s ever seen. “Why would we need to—Q wouldn’t…I mean, she’s my…”

He sounds so lost, Julia sets the basket on the ground. She rushes to him and covers one of his hands with hers; well, she tries, but her hand is hilariously small compared to his. “God, Eliot, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. Of course she’s your daughter. And Q would never keep her from you. I’m just saying…things can get complicated. You guys just need to be prepared.”

Eliot nods and visibly swallows, like there’s something in his throat. “Okay. Thanks. Got it.”

Julia’s heart aches for him, but she knows he needs to hear it. “I’m really not trying to freak you out. But like…what if Q meets someone? And he wants to move to, I don’t know, Portland. Are you going to move too? Are you guys going to do a long distance shared custody situation?”

It’s like she can see when it happens, when Eliot makes the decision to put his feelings away and reset. He takes a breath, clears his throat, and his face clears. Then, he says, with a weirdly placid voice and slight smile, “We would work it out. It’s fine. As long as he’s happy.”

Jesus. This is honestly impossible. Why won’t he just…give her _something_.

She gives his hand a squeeze and sighs as she steps away. Eliot picks up the basket. They keep shopping.

“You know,” Julia says, as she holds up an adorable pair of leggings for approval and Eliot nods, “There were a few times I didn’t think Q would make it here. I mean, having a kid and all of that. I’m just really glad he did, and that I’m here to experience it with him. And…I’ve thought that before too, _as long as he’s happy_, I don’t even care what else happens. But I just…I don’t know what I’m trying to say. But I think he is happy. Now. With you.”

She’s not sure what she’s expecting to happen after this pronouncement, but it’s a little bit anticlimactic, if she’s being honest.

“Hm,” Eliot says, vaguely, avoiding her gaze as he continues to browse the shelves. “Oh, look, a baby Ewok onesie.”

It’s an obvious avoidance tactic, but she lets him have it. “Let me guess, you’d never let Helena be seen in something so tacky.”

Personally, she thinks it’s kind of cute, but she would never tell Eliot that, for fear of being kicked off the short list of people he trusts to help select baby clothes, which has been kind of thrilling.

Eliot holds the item up with a considering look. “It’s obviously hideous. Q would like it, though.”

Julia can’t quite hold back a smile. “Oh, he would love it. As someone who has been treated to many a Coldwater lecture about how the Ewoks are—”

“_Unfairly maligned_,” Eliot says in unison with her, rolling his eyes with fondness he clearly doesn’t realize is so obvious. “Yeah, I’ve heard about the _thematic relevance _of the Ewoks a few times.”

It gives her a little start, to remember that Eliot technically, has known Quentin longer than she has. Which if she’s being honest makes her feel a little possessive in a way she clearly recognizes as being ridiculous, but for most of their lives, she’s been Quentin’s _person_, and he’s been hers. There’s a comfort in that, and obviously it won’t ever go away, but he had this whole other life she’ll never really know about, and the only one who will, is Eliot. Of course he’s heard Quentin’s whole thing about the Ewoks.

“Don’t buy any Star Wars stuff unless you want Q to talk to you for at least an hour about Joseph Campbell,” she warns, because Eliot is still holding the onesie, like he can’t quite bring himself to put it down.

“Who? Oh, that guy who wrote about the uh…monogamy, or whatever?” Eliot waves one hand distractedly as he continues to stare at the onesie. It has a _hood_ on it with little furry Ewok ears. It is the complete antithesis of everything Eliot laid out in his ground rules for picking clothes for his daughter.

“The monomyth,” Julia corrects, her voice shaking with laughter she’s trying to keep in. “But uh, yeah, him.”

Eliot nods like he’s made a decision.

“Well, parenting is all about compromise.” he says smoothly, adding the onesie to the basket he has on his arm.

Julia isn’t sure how Eliot buying a onesie he doesn’t like and then having to listen to Quentin talk about the Hero’s Journey for the rest of the night is in any way a compromise, but she’s pretty sure he did just completely give himself away. She smiles, a little smug.

-

Later, when they’ve returned to the penthouse, she watches as Eliot unpacks their purchases. Q loves everything, but especially the headbands, and the Ewok onesie, obviously. And, of course, he almost immediately launches into an impassioned defense of the Ewoks and their relevance to the Star Wars canon. Julia quickly excuses herself, but she doesn’t miss the way Eliot smiles to himself as he carefully stacks the clothes into neat piles on the table.

She goes to talk to Kady on the balcony, where she’d retreated almost instantly when she heard Q start up the Star Wars stuff. When Julia comes back in, Q is still talking, gesturing wildly with his free arm as he holds Helena with the other and paces around the kitchen, bouncing her on his hip.

She shakes her head, glances over at Eliot, and, well. He’s done sorting the clothes, and is just sitting at the table now, resting his chin on his hand as he listens to Quentin, who is showing no signs of stopping. Julia, who has been in Eliot’s place too many times to count, knows this is about the time she would be cutting Q off.

But Eliot doesn’t even look annoyed. He’s smiling a little, like he can’t help it. His eyes are soft and unguarded, and this isn’t really a word Julia would usually whip out, but his expression can only be described as _dreamy_. He doesn’t look away from Quentin once. Julia could probably go sit next to him and he wouldn’t even notice.

Julia watches him watching Quentin, his eyes following Q’s every movement around the kitchen as he holds their daughter. _Gotcha_, she thinks.

In the end, she hadn’t had to do anything. Eliot couldn’t help buying a stupid onesie just because Q would like it, and set up himself up to be on the receiving end of one of Quentin’s nerdy rants, willingly, because it clearly makes him happy to listen to Q talk about something he’s into.

“Sorry, I know this is probably like, so boring to you,” Quentin pauses to say.

Eliot shrugs, like he could take it or leave it, now that Q is paying attention, and Julia has to admit, he is good. She can tell why Q doesn’t see it. She feels a sudden rush of sympathy for both of them. “Don’t stop on my account. It sounds like there’s a lot of…nuance.”

Q’s eyes narrow in suspicion. “I feel like you’re making fun of me, but there _is_ actually a lot of nuance, Like, the Ewoks were actually kind of badass in the end, you know? And…”

Julia smiles as she heads to her room.

She likes Eliot. She’s rooting for him. There’s not much more she could want as Q’s best friend, than to see the way Eliot clearly loves him. It’s just…she wishes they weren’t such dumbasses about it. Try as they might—and they are trying—this can’t go on forever.

As someone who’s read the books more times than she can count, Julia knows the answer to the mosaic. _The beauty of all life_? Yeah, Q had conveniently left that part out of his explanation of how he and Eliot had lived an entire life together in another timeline, but come on. It’s actually so romantic it’s kind of gross.

So, they’re not fooling her. She just hopes they can get their shit together, because, well, obviously, she thinks they really make each other happy. Also, she already has an idea for a toast at the wedding, and it’s going to be really good, so. Q and Eliot really shouldn’t take that away from her. It’s her right, as a best friend, after all.

-

They’re in the throne room with nothing to do for the severalth day in a row when the thought strikes Josh.

“Fen, do we know what Margo is doing?” She’s been gone for a hot, hot second.

Fen blinks at him. Shrugs. “Iunno,” is what she says, approximately. Josh frowns at her.

“I feel like we’ve let you watch too much TV but okay, no one listens to me,” he says, lifting his hands in surrender. She gives him a weird look. Okay, fine.

“I’m gonna go see what’s up,” he says. “Hold my calls?”

“What?”

“We haven’t let you watch enough TV,” Josh says, only a moderate pivot, he figures. “Also, no one from our crew’s ever said that to you before? Seriously?”

One handy-dandy dial into the clock portal later, Josh is in their supersize luxury apartment and staring down at Penny and a baby.

“So let me get this straight,” says Josh.

“Sure,” says Penny, seemingly endlessly entertained by being the arbiter of what the deal is, which would seem to be out of character for him. But Josh guesses, eh, everyone’s got different kicks to get.

“That baby is Quentin..._and_...Eliot’s? And _only_ theirs?”

“Uh-huh.” Seriously, why is Penny enjoying this so much?

“But it’s not in the mpreg category.”

“Dude, what?”

“Never mind,” says Josh, who has no time to explain his misspent Star Trek youth to someone with a face as symmetrical as Penny’s.

The baby, he notices then, is awake and blinking slowly at Josh like that’s a recent development, nestled where she is on Penny’s lap. She’s cozily swaddled up.

“She’s like freakishly cartoon cute,” he says, spontaneously entranced. “Look at this little chickadee!”

She’s a baby so she doesn’t register that, which, fair enough. She does grip his hand a bunch when he holds it out for her.

“I don’t think I want kids,” he says to Penny, conversationally.

“Is that your big takeaway from this clusterfuck? Not you,” and Penny is directing the latter to the baby, “I mean your weird dumbass dads.”

“I don’t know, man!” Josh says. “Okay, they popped out a baby before they turned 30. I don’t know about you, but all my Facebook pals who aren’t constantly oopsing themselves into the apocalypse or ruling a fantasy universe from a kid’s book? Mostly they’re on that wave.”

Penny, inexplicably to Josh, shakes his head. “Look, this part gives me actual physical pain to explain,” says Penny, “but from what I understand, they think they’re not together? At least Quentin does.”

“What the fuck,” says Josh.

“Coldwater not being able to shut his mind-trap has caused so much unnecessary shit in my life.” Penny pulls the baby closer to his face. “Isn’t that right, Helena?” he asks her, with great fondness.

She only blinks at him in response, but, hey, she’s a baby.

“I guess this is slightly more nontraditional than I initially thought,” says Josh, very contemplatively, folding his arms. Of course, he guesses that he hadn’t had the slightest clue that Eliot and Quentin were a thing other than—oh, man, threesome story. Margo had totally told him a threesome story about all of them! This is _so_ weird. But also not that weird? Also, why had she even told him about that? Actually, no, both Eliot and Margo are kind of stealth oversharers, that makes sense.

Anyway. For some reason, this makes Penny give him a familiar jock-judgmental kind of look.

“What?” says Josh. Penny just shakes his head again.

But then he sees the exact moment when Penny’s eyes alight on something that’s not him, just behind him, and pop a little wide. Josh has really been on the receiving end of too many _oh shit _moments of this kind in his life, so he just sighs. “Is something fucked up behind me now?”

Penny meets his eyes again. “Uh,” he says. “Not...really...kind of?”

Josh turns, and okay, that makes sense, because it’s just some blonde chick who’s kind of hunched over.

“RENT IS _DUE,_” intones a too-deep voice from somewhere inside of the blonde chick, yet also seeming like it’s coming from somewhere else.

“How the fuck did you get in?” says Penny, like this is day-to-day, shuffling up to his feet with the baby carefully-held. “You normally knock, lady.”

“YOU ARE THE MOST IMPERTINENT,” says the blonde chick in the same weird possessed voice, “AND I HATE YOU. AND THE DOOR WAS UNLOCKED.”

Even though there’s nothing remotely threatening about any of this, somehow, except for that it’s kind of creepy, Josh backs up to flank Penny still in front of the couch and far from any exits to the penthouse, not thinking to wonder if it’s a bitch move. “Who is _this,”_ he hisses at Penny.

“I AM THE BABA YAGA,” says, apparently, the Baba Yaga. “YOU ARE A TERRIBLE PUTRID COMMONER.”

Uh. Penny and Josh exchange looks. “Fair enough?” says Josh.

“Josh, meet our landlady,” he says. “Baba Yaga, meet Josh.”

“I DO NOT WISH TO MEET JOSH,” says Baba Yaga. “RENT IS DUE.”

Josh watches Penny’s eyes narrow. “Not until Thursday?” he says. “Kady’s working on it.”

“THURSDAY IS A BANK HOLIDAY,” says Baba Yaga. “RENT IS DUE EARLY.”

“Oh my god. Shut the fuck up. Did Bailey put you up to that? None of your weird stuff even goes into a bank!”

“I AM NOT WEIRD AND I AM NOT PUT UP TO ANYTHING, MORTAL. I—” And the baby makes a tiny little noise, not a cry, more like an upgraded yawn, and Josh watches as she becomes wiggly in Penny’s grip.

The Baba Yaga, which looks like a hunched tiny millennial, straightens herself. “WHAT IS THAT,” she says. “YOU ARE WITH CHILD?”

“Did you just now notice me, like, holding a fucking baby,” says Penny, with mild disbelief.

“Also—would not use the exact turn of phrase she just did,” Josh says, wincing a little, making Penny shoot him a look that approximately conveys: _why are you questioning the phrasing of the possessed magic demon lady_ or whatever the shit is happening.

Josh flinches his whole body back, nearly falling back against the couch, when the Baba Yaga’s response is to seem to warp-speed to stand in front of Penny. Penny has no discernible reaction other than shifting the baby closer to his body.

The Baba Yaga’s face seems to clear, as she looks at the baby from this distance, even though the baby’s face is turned to Penny’s chest. “THE CHILD IS FINELY-MADE,” she says, sounding a little awed. “DOES IT RESIDE HERE? IS IT YOURS? TO WHOM DOES THE CHILD BELONG?”

“Uh. That’s a...that’s a long story,” says Penny, looking like he understands where this is going about as much as Josh does, which is reassuring.

“IT IS SO BEAUTIFUL,” says Baba Yaga, and there are maybe tears in her...its...eyes?

Penny blinks, clearly fully taken aback. “Um,” he says. “Y...yeah? She’s really...special, right?”

“_YES_,” says the Baba Yaga, somehow more heated than when talking about rent. “DOES SHE RESIDE HERE?”

“Y…” The mental math that is clearly happening on Penny’s part about how to proceed is something to see. “Yes?”

“AS LONG AS THIS CHILD RESIDES HERE,” says Baba Yaga, “AND IS CARED FOR, I WILL NOT CLAIM RENT.”

Josh has just met his friends’ new slightly-inexplicable baby, but he ventures, tentatively, “Cool, please don’t eat her?”

At this, the Baba Yaga opens her mouth, seeming to almost unhinge it, and _screams._ Josh scrambles to cover his ears through the sound that lasts a too-long time even after she closes her mouth.

Penny is blinking rapidly. The baby is somehow unbothered.

“I AM NOT A BARBARIAN!” her voice takes on zeal. “A COMMON DRAGON! YOU SAY I CONSUME CHILDREN! NEVER SAY THAT AGAIN! LIARS TELL THOSE STORIES!”

“Okay, holy shit, lady,” says Penny, vaguely gesturing out one-handed like he might try to get her to calm herself, “just, _chill,_ okay—”

“I WILL NOT _CHILL!_” says Baba Yaga, more shrilly than before, with a gentle pitch of her scream, and Penny’s gesture becomes one of surrender. The Baba Yaga pants off of this second outburst, huge breaths in and out.

His life has taken some turns, is what Josh thinks to himself.

“Okay,” Josh says delicately, “so, baby here, no rent. We all understand each other.”

“YOU MUST GIVE HER THE MOST EXQUISITE CARE,” says Baba Yaga, like they’re obviously at risk of not doing that. “I WILL MEET THE PARENTS AND TELL THEM AND RETURN OFTEN TO MONITOR THE SMALL BAG OF FLESH. YOU WILL CHECK DOOR LOCKS NOW.”

This results in a brief, tight pause.

Josh tries, “I don’t know if that’s—”

“DO NOT SAY ANOTHER WORD,” she goes on, interrupting Josh and as Penny shoots him another _look,_ “I WILL RETURN SOON, AND I WILL TELL BAILEY.”

They stare after the Baba Yaga as she backs from them, like the conversation is done, but she doesn’t turn to walk out of the penthouse. She just backs herself up to the door, fumbles with it behind her with a very unsupernatural awkwardness, actually, and then backs herself the rest of the way into the hallway, leaving the door open with her out of sight.

“Wait,” says Josh, thinking of it after a second, “who the fuck is Bailey?”

Before they can think to close the door, do, or say anything else, one of the men of the hour, Eliot, appears in the doorway, looking bewildered and simultaneously well put-together and very tired-eyed, and carrying bags of what appear to be...Wait, Penny _had_ said something about a diaper run. It’s really weird to see Eliot holding groceries and also diapers?

“Um,” says Eliot. “Why is the door open? Oh, hey, Josh.”

“Wow!” says Josh. “Eliot! Dude! _Just_ the guy without any baggage about bargaining with supernatural beings over his offspring that I wanted to see!”

Eliot looks at him, and his mouth opens, then closes. Penny takes a deep breath.

After that, Margo comes back to Fillory for a little bit, like, actually, with the ruling and whatnot. Josh is somehow unsurprised when he returns and immediately goes, “Fen, you’ll never guess who and who popped out a friggin’ _baby!_” and Fen already knows everything, and has since the last time Margo dipped back in, when this situation was already happening (also, Josh apparently “met” the baby when he was a fish, which he has no memory of?) because, yeah.

No one ever lets him have any fun.

-

Margo comes to Quentin the next time she’s “in town,” as they’ve hilariously started calling her visits, and says, “So I posted about your little situation on Hexxit, and they think it’s _fucked_.”

“Hexxit?” 

“It’s like magic Reddit. Okay, listen to this: ‘I[25M] magically spawned my best-friends-with-benefits’[26M] baby in a spell gone wrong.’”

“Oh my _God_.” Those words seem to be the only ones he has in his vocabulary, now. He snatches the phone out of Margo’s hand and starts to read.

“‘Hey guys, it’s me again’—Margo what the fuck, what does this mean, ‘me again’?”

Margo raises her hands in the air, like she’s confessing a crime but doesn’t actually feel that bad about it. “Okay, so maybe I’ve been posting on Hexxit as you for the last few years. You gotta admit, you’re a fucking mess. It’s a good creative writing exercise.”

Quentin stares at her, unable to form words.

“_What_? It helps me unwind,” Margo shrugs.

“Jesus Christ,” Quentin mumbles, and keeps scrolling. “‘Hey guys, it’s me again, you won’t believe what happened this time…or maybe you will, considering the source.’ Really?”

Margo shrugs again. “I mean…”

Quentin thinks for a second and then nods, conceding. “Yeah, okay.”

The rest of the Hexxit post is…something.

_A little background info: my best-friend-with-benefits and I have a weird relationship. We had a threesome with our really hot other best friend a few years ago and my girlfriend broke up with me (you all probably remember her, she’s the one who I was letting live in my back tattoo after she Niffin-ed out. good news, she’s back to normal, mostly. we were fucking for awhile, and then she betrayed me and the rest of our group when we were just trying to save the goddamn world, nbd, you’re welcome everyone. but we’re cool now…anyway, long story for another post!)._

_I acted like a total piece of shit and blamed my bfwb and our incredibly hot best friend for ruining my relationship, even though it was clearly the best sex I’d ever had and it’s totally on me where I stick my dick and where I let other people’s dicks get stuck. We got past that whole incident, but my bfwb and I have been pining over each other like we’re in some torrid gay Regency romance novel because we’re pathetic assholes who can’t have a conversation about our feelings._

_I insist we’re just friends even though we fuck like rabbits in the apartment where we’re living with all our friends, and it’s awkward for everyone. Now, I accidentally brought a poor innocent baby into this shitshow of a situation because I can’t keep my emotionally horny mind clear for two seconds while doing a basic spell and magically knocked myself up. The baby is great but I still won’t admit my feelings and neither will my bfwb. Please help my sorry ass._

“Margo, _Jesus_,” Quentin chokes out.

“Well, what’s inaccurate about it?” Margo asks, challenging. “I mean, I did have to leave out the whole other timeline wife and child thing. Way too convoluted, and it seems fake already. So it’s not even the whole god damn story, but I figured this is enough to give people an idea of what we’re dealing with.”

Quentin’s barely paying attention, having just seen what “his” Hexxit user handle is, which is _filloryfucker93_.

The previous post made from the account reads “I [25m] tried to banish myself to a weird fucking castle forever and now I don’t want to talk about it.”

He shoves the phone back at Margo, as though he can make it all go away if he’s not looking at it anymore. “Okay, why did you show this to me?”

“Thought you might appreciate a little outside perspective. I mean, lots of people just think you’re a narcissist…or maybe they think El’s the narcissist, I forget, someone’s always a narcissist in these things.”

“Oh okay,” Quentin mumbles, rubbing at his eyes. “Great. That helps a lot.”

“But,” Margo adds, one hand on her hip, phone in her other hand, “the rest of them think you guys are totally in love and need to just fucking talk it out already, so. There you go. The people of the internet have spoken.”

“We have talked it out,” Quentin can’t stop himself from replying, irritated. It had kind of been unavoidable, letting everyone know about the mosaic, but luckily he’d been spared sharing Eliot’s rejection with everyone. He’d wondered if maybe Eliot had told Margo. His instinct told him no. They both had obviously been hesitant to talk about it. And he doesn’t think Margo would be keeping that to herself right now if she knew. 

“You’ve talked it out in a Quentin and Eliot way, but have you talked it out in a like, normal person way?” Margo asks, and Quentin hates that he knows what she means, what she’s not saying.

Thankfully, he’s saved from having to reply for the moment by Penny arriving in the room with Helena. She’s squirming in his arms and making unhappy noises.

“Hey, somebody just woke up cranky from her nap and even though, as you all know, I’m normally the baby whisperer, she’s just not very chill right now. Think she wants to see her dad.”

He holds her out to Quentin, and his heart turns over when she stops fussing and lets out a happy coo.

“See, there you go,” Penny smiles as he hands her over, and Quentin moves to sit down on the couch. “Guess I just can’t compete.”

Quentin’s smiling too, he’s not sure he’ll ever stop. “Hi, beautiful. I missed you. Want to hang out with me and Aunt Margo for awhile?”

She babbles back at him and reaches out one perfect, tiny hand to grab at his hair. Quentin gently extracts her surprisingly strong fingers from their grip—god how did he forget about that, it’s just another thing he missed without realizing it—and presses a kiss to each one.

Margo sits down next to him, laughs and says, “Of course she does, who wouldn’t want to hang out with me?”

The mood in the room is so much lighter than it was a minute ago, and Quentin’s hoping the previous topic of conversation has been forgotten, but then Margo clears her throat and says, “Hey, Penny, sorry to kick you out, but me and Q were sort of having a come to Jesus moment here, so...”

Instead of looking annoyed, Penny just nods at her and they exchange annoyingly significant looks. _What the fuck_, Quentin thinks. “About time. I’ll leave you guys to it. See ya, kid.”

He waves at the baby, who is currently gummily gnawing on the collar of Quentin’s shirt, and drooling all over him in the process.

“What was that about?” Quentin asks, as soon as they’re alone again.

Margo sighs. “Let’s just say we’re all on the same page about you and El and your particular brand of emotional constipation.”

“We’re fine, Margo,” Quentin insists, because they really are, for their definition of fine. Things are working.

But Margo has always been able to see through him, and she’s never accepted his easy answers. She’s always been a lot kinder than she could’ve been about it, all the way back to his first year at Brakebills. It was Margo who talked with him about his dad, and Fillory being fucked up and why that mattered even when he couldn’t quite articulate it. It was Margo who helped Eliot come up with a plan to kill the monster, and refused to let Quentin quietly exile himself.

It’s the same now, and sure enough, Margo says, “Okay Q, I’ll make this easy on you. Let’s just skip the part where I pretend like I don’t know you’re head over dick in love with Eliot, and you tell me why it’s some big fucking secret when you’re so emotionally horny for him you literally said fuck you to biology and had his baby?”

It’s different than talking with Julia. He’d eventually had to tell her the truth, but he’d been able to talk around it for a little while, at least. Trying to hide things from Margo is pointless, it always has been, for him, so Quentin just bounces the baby on his lap, smiling when she kicks her feet and gurgles, and he says, “I can’t tell him.”

“Okay, points for not trying to give me some bullshit token protest,” Margo raises her eyebrows, sounding almost impressed. “Should I even ask _why_ you can’t tell him, or is too mind-blowingly asinine to entertain?”

Quentin figures he has nothing to lose here, Margo will eventually get everything she wants to know out of him, and even a little more if he makes it hard, so he shrugs and says, “Honestly? I don’t want to scare him off.”

Margo stares at him. She seems genuinely at a loss for words, which is not something Quentin can say he’s seen before. 

“God, you’re an idiot,” she finally says. She sounds actually angry, nasty in a way she hasn’t been with Quentin in a long time or ever, and the startle it gives Quentin makes him realize the affection that Margo usually denigrates him with has transformed _idiot_ into a term of endearment. 

But it’s obvious her venom towards him has been used as some sort of fortifying draught, because she takes a deep breath and says, “Listen, Q, I’ve been thinking—about Eliot’s daughter. Fen’s daughter. And what I did.” Her voice is small in a way that is about a million times more painful to Quentin than any hostility she could throw his way.

_I don’t know how talk about either of my dead fucking kids, Quentin. _He hadn’t known how to talk about this either. Quentin remembers their trip to Vancouver in search of the clock, Eliot catching him up on everything in a joking tone that was even more brittle than normal. Wife gone, baby traded away, Margo in the dungeon. Then, killing a god, Margo minus one eye, an epic quest—and the whole thing never brought up again because they didn’t have _time_. 

“Margo—” he says, and the pity in his voice must trigger something because she seems to shake herself out of it, tossing her hair and putting her hands on her hips. Her chin gives its telltale tremble, though.

“Don’t get me wrong—if I had to go back and do it again, I would. I would do _anything_ for Eliot, but—he _loves_ her. Helena. If it came down to Eliot and her I would have to choose her because he couldn’t _stand it_ if anything happened to her. So I understand that _anything_ might look different now.”

“Jesus, Margo.” He sounds horrified, he can’t help it, the thought of having to choose between Eliot and—“I’m sure that won’t…”

Margo snorts. “Happen again? _Please._ You know what our lives are like.” 

He still must look a little queasy because Margo rolls her eyes and says, “Okay, fine, our lives are now magical Party of Five and nothing bad will ever happen again. I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

There’s a beat of silence then, Margo as close to a loss for words as she ever comes, before she repeats, softly, “Eliot loves her, dumbass,” and although none of them other than Eliot and Quentin and weirdly Penny have been super comfortable with sudden extended contact with a baby, Margo has been among the wariest. But she leans over to where Helena has tired herself out and dozes in Quentin’s arms, and strokes her hair back with a gesture that teases at Quentin with a sense of familiarity. 

Margo, who loves what Eliot loves: Quentin, Fen, even a baby. Quentin’s chest feels tight with love for her. It had never occurred to him not to trust Margo totally with this, with everything, although he guesses her track record on this particular subject _is_ kind of shaky. He clears his suddenly constricted throat and says, “Um, do you want to hold her?” 

Margo jerks back and says, “Eh, I’ll pass. I’d die for her, but...no thanks.”

Quentin laughs and so does Margo, and she smiles at him, the smile that he used to think he was deluding himself in thinking was almost—sweet, and just for him. Something he hadn’t even realized was knotted up in Margo seems to have eased. 

“I’m not a big baby fan. Obviously. I will be a _great_ cool aunt though, just give me a few years. I’ll have her sorted when it comes to providing alcohol for parties when she’s fifteen.”

“_Margo_.”

“Seventeen?” They’re both giggling quietly, trying not to wake the baby. 

“Don’t give me that look. You were a little degenerate, Q. Me and Julia have been talking.” 

Margo laughs harder at the look at his face. Julia and Margo’s burgeoning friendship was honestly more stressful to him than sudden miraculous parenthood. Margo’s full, gloriously Margo laugh wakes Helena up fully, and she’s _not_ happy about it. Margo refuses to either apologize or stay around for the consequences, but Quentin wouldn’t want it any other way if it meant Margo being anything less than herself. 

“Oh and by the way,” she loudly whispers over her shoulder as she leaves, “I know him better than anyone, and El is really disgustingly in love with you, even if he won’t admit it, so stop cocking out on me, Coldwater, and make a move.”

-

One day, when the baby is napping and Quentin is trying not to, and everyone else out doing various ‘leading a revolution against the Library’ things, which is still happening except now there’s a baby, Julia comes in holding something and looking — sly, and delighted. 

“Look what I found,” she says in a sing-song. She does a little dance as she comes towards Quentin, and he feels the sort of vague dread only nearly two decades of friendship can produce. She thrusts a book into his hands. Quentin recognizes it as one of the scrapbooks she’d mentioned a few days earlier, and his dread takes on concrete form. He knows there are several boxes of them, sitting in the closet of wherever Julia happens to land, filled with all the memories of their shared adolescence. 

“The talk about your astrology phase,” (_our astrology phase_, Quentin mutters under his breath), “made me remember this.” She opens the books and flips to the exact spot she wants, taps with one wine-red fingernail.

It’s funny to see shitty crinkly magazine paper so meticulously framed in, it’s funny to see Julia’s careful precise handwriting labeling the date next to it, the actual text is… It’s funny, sure, but it makes something in his stomach do something that’s decidedly less funny.

“Cosmo Girl right?”

“_Elle_ Girl,” Julia corrects him a little more emphatically than he thinks is called for.

_Put yourself out there! Spring has sprung and it’s time to meet new people. You never know who might be the one. After all, not to jump too far ahead, but we have a feeling there’s a marriage to someone tall and handsome in your future, maybe even sooner than you think._

“I remember this, you kept it?”

“It was a nice day.”

It had been. That weekend was the first time that Julia’s parents had let her stay at home by herself when they were out of town. 

“You told me that you thought it probably meant handsome like Katharine Hepburn.” 

“I sort of thought, maybe I should have,” she starts, then catches whatever she was about to say and reshapes it, “you seemed freaked out.”

He had been. Fuck, he hadn’t even realized it. They’d done Tarot next, there was always a comforting order to things for them, horoscope, then tarot, then palms. This weekend they’d been drinking while they did it, making jokes about the rager they were having with Julia’s parents out of town. He’d felt so nervous during tarot, like somehow every card flipped over was going to give him a promise of someone tall and handsome. He’d made them skip palm reading even though it pissed Julia off.

He must have been silent for too long trying to process that Julia recognized him having teenage gay panic before he ever had because there’s Julia, as always, filling in the space in the conversation where he can’t.

“Plus I wanted an excuse to make you watch The Philadelphia Story. She’s very handsome in that one.”

“Sorry I fell asleep during it. Did we ever find out what yar meant?”

Julia punches him in the shoulder and he pulls her into a hug. 

“For all we know Elle Girl had real magicians on staff, so maybe put yourself out there, Q.” 

-

Quentin—has heard Eliot sing, a decent amount. He’d really liked to sing to Teddy. Eliot has a beautiful voice and it’s one of the endless list of things he seems too smugly aware he’s good at, even though he acts kind of like a guy with a guitar at an undergrad party about it sometimes, like_ oh no, I don’t need to play._ Of course, Quentin had always been a little jealous of that, too, even just of that concept: being jerkishly fake-humble about things people could actually be, like, interested in.

But the first time he catches Eliot singing to Helena, he didn’t even realize Helena had woken up before he comes back into the room, and Eliot is crooning softly and close to their daughter’s face: “—_darling, the smiles returning to the faces, little darling, it seems like years—”_

Eliot doesn’t realize he’s there, clearly, because Quentin goes so still he maybe doesn’t breathe. But Helena goes from shifting awkwardly in Eliot’s arms to full-blown tears, and Eliot tapers from Beatles to consoling indulgence. “Oh, honey honey,” he says to her, swaying her in his arms, “you’re fine, you’re fine, we’re all here.”

And then, with a change in his expression that makes Quentin think he just became aware that he’s being watched, Eliot looks up at him. “Sorry,” he says, as un-self conscious as he ever is, or at least sheepish about something else. “Is it possible to dust too loud? I think that did her in.”

Quentin laughs. “It’s fine, El,” he says. “She’s, uh, allowed to wake up.”

Eliot’s brows raise. “Dangerous thinking, Q,” he says, but he smiles.

Quentin doesn’t think about singing to Helena. That’s not really how singing from Quentin happens, because if he thought about singing, he wouldn’t be singing. But another day, in another week, he kind of mumbles to her, while rocking her around in the kitchen, “_Baby, now we’ve got bad blood…_”

Helena is almost comically soothed; he feels the whole of her tiny self relax into him, like he’s hit some special button that he’ll probably never find agan. He smiles to himself, pressing his mouth to the crown of her head. He isn’t surprised to look up and see Eliot watching him; Eliot had been cooking, and he’d been distracting their imminently distractible baby.

“_That_ song?” And for some reason, this seems to be directed at Helena, too: “Really?”

Quentin feels his face go pink, but he’s grinning, too, even more so when Eliot mutters something about the rest of the Taylor Swift catalogue. For her part, Helena is breathing slow and soft in his arms; it’s not a bad time for her to be napping so he goes to put her down.

And then it’s like, not quite an in-joke, which somehow feels too familiar to call something in their current indescribable situation, but he is really stretching his bigger-than-he’d-like Taylor Swift knowledge to keep Eliot amused when he sings to Helena.

Every time, it unlocks a special reaction from her: she giggles up at him, giggling more when he sings “_the sun came up, I was looking at you”_ right up against her face before he kisses her big on each cheek. She eats it up. When he looks up, as always, Eliot is watching them, something happening in his expression that Quentin can never quite get at.

But he’s only half-aware that he’s humming a mostly-forgotten rendition of You Belong With Me (the lyrics themselves are kind of blurry after _she’s cheer captain, _but it’s enough for the weird quasi-competition he has going with Eliot) when Eliot suddenly says, “Have I produced a child with _no_ sense of key?”

Quentin laughs at him; it’s weirdly unforced, moments like these. “What does that even mean?”

Eliot says, shaking his head, “You’re saying you haven’t noticed that she hates it when I sing to her?”

Quentin feels the humor drain from his face. “No, El,” he says, with sudden conviction, “what, come on, no, she doesn’t.”

He shakes his head, surprisingly smiling a little ruefully, maybe tired. It’s closer to the end of the day than it is to the start of it. “She always starts fussing,” he says, with the undercurrent of it really bothering him but wanting it to seem like it doesn’t that’s always so clear to Quentin now. “She loves your voice. Can’t imagine why.”

Quentin can’t help but frown, and he feels, ridiculously, a little annoyed with how dear Eliot sounds, how warm. “She—no, she doesn’t. Here, take her.”

Eliot raises his brows, but he acquiesces, crossing from behind the kitchen counter to lift Helena from Quentin’s arms, where Quentin is situated with her on the couch. Quentin, sitting up, is flooded with feeling for the split-second that he swears Eliot looks a little shy, a little protectively closed behind his eyes, before he starts, “_The moment I wake up, before I put on my makeup—_”

And, as if on cue, the baby squirms anxiously in his arms. Eliot looks at Quentin again, like, _see? _But Quentin just waits. Eliot sighs.

“_I say a little prayer for you, while combing my hair, now,” _the baby fidgets harder as he spins her, which is usually a killer move, “_and wondering what dress to wear, now,_” and then she lets out a little whiny cry.

Eliot sighs, again, and moves her up to his shoulder.

“Hey,” says Quentin, with the seriousness he does genuinely feel, by second-life instinct just putting a comforting hand up on Eliot’s hip even though the gesture is weird and too-intimate, “maybe she’s just really into Taylor Swift,” and Eliot actually _scoffs,_ making Quentin grin.

He lets his hand stay where it is, and Eliot rocks Helena gently, looking like he’s thinking about something harder than he should, maybe. Usually between the two of them it’s Quentin who’s supposed to do that.

Quentin tugs on his hip, a little. “I think, I think maybe she just wants you to sing,” he says.

Eliot blinks down at him. “I have no idea what you mean,” he says, flat. Quentin grins.

“I mean, you do—your thing. You know, the thing you do, when you’re—” The word _performing _comes to mind, but for some reason feels unfair to say. “You’re, like, _trying _to sing for her. You don’t need to do that, El.”

This hadn’t been an issue with Teddy, who had benefited from an early age from Eliot’s sense of spectacle with generous awe, and then some rebellion that Eliot had also sometimes enjoyed. But here, now, Eliot is just staring down at him, his mouth only just open.

“Still don’t know what you mean,” he says, after a too-long beat, but he’s not looking at Quentin when he says it, his eyes on Helena’s face. And then he starts, his voice much softer: “_Forever, forever, you’ll stay in my heart_.”

And Helena may not as suddenly amenable as she is when _he_ sings, Quentin would never agree, but she’s calmed looking up at Eliot, suddenly wider-eyed.

That night, Helena is between them on the bed when Eliot puts his hand on his jaw, like he does when he’s about to pull him in to kiss, but he just looks at Quentin instead. Quentin is too tired to freak out over what that could mean, too tired for anything, really, and just closes his eyes.

The next morning at breakfast, Penny says, “Why are you back to dreaming about Taylor Swift, man, I got war flashbacks,” but apparently he’s not expecting an answer, because he just steals the box of Beeholes from Quentin and goes out to the living room.

-

Penny kind of takes Kady, Julia and Margo in his active tutelage regarding infant care, and now they have progressively more-skilled babysitters at their disposal while everyone alternately runs around doing Library fascism (..._uh?_) resistance and hedge stuff.

Honestly, Quentin is again kind of lost on the current plot and rogue’s gallery, and you know what, fuck it. Fair enough. He gave himself and Eliot a baby, so, that’s enough to deal with.

And god, has he loved dealing with it. Being a parent again—he missed Teddy like a limb but didn’t fully think to grieve the fact of, like, parenting. He lost the lifetime where he got to breathe deep in the crown of his child’s hair, where he got to change cloth diapers, the first steps from crawling, and then watching Teddy grow into his own mind, his own thoughts, parts of him impossibly Quentin, Arielle and Eliot, but wonderfully separate, too.

Quentin got to have this _again, _and the tenuous moment where it might have been taken from him felt like it was easing day by day, almost gone now but still not far from his mind. Enough that, well. The penthouse was quiet and empty, and very clean after Eliot’s most recent, like, twelfth deep cleaning (what was up with Eliot that he seemed to _like doing that_, Quentin had used to be baffled by with immeasurable fondness), and it was early afternoon and sunny outside. Kady and Julia had taken the baby.

And Quentin felt satisfied with all of this, so he took a break from the study duty he had been put on for the day and slumped off to the bedroom, took his jeans off, and crawled into bed.

“Q?”

Time has passed indefinably, a warm stretch of the quiet bedroom in sunlight. His mind reaches out for where the baby would be—Kady, Julia_—_and first-thought panic recedes. He’s being shaken awake so, so gently, more like he’s being rocked.

“Q?” Eliot says, again.

He feels himself smile with context-free affection, and when he opens his eyes, Eliot looks almost stunned. Quentin feels his smile ease, and the expression on Eliot’s face passes like he’d dreamed it, half-asleep.

Quentin heaves a sigh. “What’s up, El?” He starts to try to sit up, but even though Eliot had clearly been trying to wake him up, he gentles him back against the bed.

“No, no,” he says, “you need sleep. Go back to sleep.” Both of them needed sleep, they had their new-parent eye bags again.

Quentin groans a little, his eyes closing again for a second, stretching a little in place. “You_—wanted_ me awake, asshole,” he says, but he’s smiling again, and so is Eliot, then. Eliot’s hands finally ease from him, and they’re just, they’re smiling at each other, Eliot leaning over him from the other side of the bed.

“I did,” Eliot says, his voice soft. And then, not at all what Quentin was expecting to hear next, “Do you want to go to Fillory?”

Quentin blinks up at him like maybe he’s still sleeping, and pulls himself to sit up then, against the headboard. “Eliot, _what?_”

“Uh,” Eliot starts, and for whatever reason he turns away from Quentin, then, seeming to think. Quentin watches his jaw work.

“Yesterday, I said_—_I told you I was going to the store? I did go to the store. We needed even more diapers. Obviously. But first I went to Fillory.”

“You were back in like...thirty minutes,” Quentin says, wonderingly.

“Well, you’re the nerd here, Q,” says Eliot, obviously impatient to tell whatever story he is working up to telling. “You figure that out. But I did, though. I went back to Fillory, and I—I found where it was, Quentin. The cottage. The...the mosaic.”

The level of feeling Quentin should have about this and the reality of hearing it does not quite match up for a second, kind of like, he’s dissociating? He doesn’t know what his face is doing, but when Eliot looks back at him in the too-long beat, his alarm is immediate.

“I’m sorry,” Eliot says. “Shit, I don’t mean_—_I don’t know how to do this, Q, you’ve got to help me. Give me, give me something, say something, tell me to fuck off, I don’t know—”

“What,” says Quentin, and it comes out hollowly even though, well, there’s a lot. “Why would I tell you to fuck off?”

“That’s what you do now! And—” Maybe off Quentin’s face, Eliot holds up a hand, “No, it’s fine! You can have that, you know? I—I understand. As much as I can, which isn’t...it’s not much, Quentin. I really wish it was more.”

Eliot sighs and seems to deflate, and fuck, that’s weird to see. Eliot who is smug and self-satisfied and kind and kingly and proud and hates himself, too, all of that takes up a lot of space in the world, but his shoulders slump a little.

“El,” he says, at a loss.

“I don’t want you to remember them alone,” Eliot says then, a little thick-voiced and not looking at him, which is good, because. “I’m not going to let you do that anymore. It’s us now. It always should have been us.”

It’s so close to what Quentin—wants? Not even wants. He’s put it away, even when they sleep together every night, usually with the baby in bed and sometimes now in her own, even with Julia’s goading. He knows it’s just, it’s never going to be the thing he asked Eliot for it to be after they remembered together, all of that time ago now. They’re never going to be that. It’s a truth that slid easily enough into place, actually, because, well, that’s just how Quentin’s life works. But it’s so close to it that it hurts to hear it.

And it’s still better than doing it alone.

“Okay,” says Quentin, making Eliot look back at him, and he takes a breath. “Let’s go.”

There’s two very vivid sense-memories, overlaying each other, of Eliot gesturing Quentin through the threshold into Fillory. In one version, they clear the clock and magic spiked with opium rushes to meet them, and they are both, for all of five seconds, the happiest Quentin remembers being. In the other version, Margo screams after them, stopping them short. It seems like the latter heightens the other; he remembers it with a clarity that the sheer amount of _time_ of his other life running concurrent in his head blurs and warps.

But Quentin remembers.

And now Eliot gestures him again across the threshold into Fillory, and they have to walk, says Eliot. It’s not quite the same stretch of woods that they landed in when they hit the mosaic but there’s the _feeling_ of it, stretching out quiet and magic-damp in every direction. A remnant of that happiness seems to touch him, as if out-of-time, as he turns in place after stepping forward.

Eliot is standing behind him, just watching him when he looks back, then nods in the direction they’ll walk in. They do. He thinks that he does not do a lot of Fillorian-forest-walking these days, he like, barely leaves the fucking penthouse, and he also thinks again that Eliot had only been gone the previous day for thirty minutes. Thirty minutes is not how long it takes them to break through thick underbrush and dizzying trees to the clearing.

The clearing.

“Oh,” says Quentin.

The cottage is decimated, given almost totally back to the earth in its structure with the roof gone, walls swallowed in loamy ground and moss. Inside the walls, he sees as he approaches it, there’s the base of the second bed they eventually cobbled together from traded stuff, maybe? Some other little broken things. Outside any trace of the other bed they’d kept is gone. It seems so small, so much smaller than it does in his memories. The table and chairs, too, probably weren’t so decayed as to disappear, probably got taken.

When he looks back at Eliot, Eliot is standing in place in front of the mosaic, but looking at him. The mosaic hasn’t fared much better. Tiles are mostly gone. This quest might be done forever, just not, like, part of the lore anymore, never needing to be solved again; it’s impossible to know how things like this work in Fillory, which is why he’s loved Fillory.

“I didn’t know—” Eliot starts, then stops, and he looks out away from Quentin. “I wasn’t sure if it had still happened.” And then something ugly crosses his face, worse than a grimace. “No, fuck, that’s not, that’s not what I meant, I mean that, I didn’t know if it had _happened_ or if everything...I don’t know, got erased. But it’s all...”

Quentin shakes his head. “It’s here,” he finishes, when Eliot seems to lose words.

The implications of it are something he will have to tuck away to think about later. Quentin cries at, literally, the drop of a fucking hat lately. But he’s not crying. He doesn’t think he’ll start. This feels raw and good, like being scrubbed clean.

Eliot stands, his arms out from his hands on his hips, his head down. And Quentin looks at him, and thinks about how it wasn’t even the first time they had sex, when they had sex here, duh, but. It never felt fully separate or discontinuous from their lives from before when it first happened, when Quentin had wanted it to happen. That was true even though it would have been easy to think it was, and maybe Quentin pretended, sometimes, when it seemed like that was how Eliot felt. But then there was a whole life here.

Eliot turns in his direction, but doesn’t look up at him. “Can you just...trust me, Q?” he asks. “For a minute.”

_Always, _Quentin thinks, in spite of everything. He just nods when Eliot looks up at him, and Eliot nods, too, smooths a hand over his mouth, then waves Quentin in to come to him, which he does.

Eliot then folds down to sit in front of the tile-empty base of the mosaic, with Quentin standing beside him. Quentin’s brow furrows with his confusion, but Eliot gestures him down, too.

For a moment after he sits next to him they’re silent, beside each other, facing out, like they would have to work on the tiles. Quentin cross-legged, Eliot spreading himself out, after a fashion. The silence is loaded with whatever Eliot is about to say, or do.

“I remember,” Eliot starts, “the day, um—you told me then you told Arielle, because you were so scared she wouldn’t like it, you wanted to name him Theodore if it was a boy, after your father—”

The light in the sky gets low, snuffs out, and Quentin does not interrupt Eliot once, as if Eliot is speaking the longest spell anyone ever has.

-

Helena has been, as far as the babies Quentin has raised, which is admittedly not that large of a sample size, incredibly easy in a lot of ways. She’s happy and bright, doesn’t really doesn’t cry much, and usually sleeps through the night, most likely because of the whole “perfect spell-baby” thing, and because they skipped the newborn stage. It’s also different the second time.

Quentin thinks of Teddy, and remembers feeling so helpless, like he was absolutely useless, and that honestly Arielle and Eliot could have done it without him. He knows now that wasn’t true, and they’d all relied on each other, and Teddy had turned out to be a wonderful, loving child and a good man and father himself. 

Quentin misses him so much, constantly, and he knows he’ll never replace that part of his heart. He thinks it will always hurt a little, how could it not, but the pain is softening now, somehow. Teddy had grown up, lived a full and happy life, and Quentin had been there for it. It happened. It was real. Even if no one but Quentin and Eliot ever know or remember, Teddy, and Arielle, and the life they had, it was real and it’s a part of him.

And he learned a lot of things, from that life, and so much of raising Helena is familiar. And she’s just so…it’s just right, Quentin can feel it, she was always supposed to be his. Theirs.

But even practically perfect spell-babies go through teething, and it’s been a rough week, full of crying and fitful sleep, when sleep comes at all. And not just on Helena’s part.

Quentin has a vague memory of suddenly being in tears over something incredibly stupid, like literally, he thinks he might have been crying over spilled milk, because the fucking baby bottle top wouldn’t screw on right, and he was just so tired.

And even though Eliot was tired too, he must have been, they’d both been up since…god knows when, Eliot had put Helena into her rocker where she whimpered and fussed, and then gently gathered Quentin into his arms and kissed his forehead and said, “let’s get you to bed, okay?”

Quentin remembers protesting, as Eliot took his hand and led him down the hallway to their bedroom, which used to just be Eliot’s room, but lately he’s come to think of it as theirs, which is so fucked up, or maybe it’s not? Logistically, it makes the most sense for taking care of Helena, but sleeping in the same bed with Eliot every night is probably something a smarter person would see as a bad idea. 

That night, the mess in the kitchen, Helena still needed to be fed, and then she’d be fussy, and they’d have to somehow get her to sleep…

Eliot had gently shushed him and gently pushed him into bed and tucked the blankets around him, and Quentin had been so relieved and also embarrassed, that Eliot had to take care of him like this, when he’s supposed to be helping take care of their child, not being put to bed like a grumpy toddler.

He’d mumbled something about being sorry, and Eliot had just pet his hair back off his forehead, and that was so soothing, and Quentin remembers, right before drifting off to sleep, him saying, “Shh, don’t. It’s okay…I’ll take care of it, just go to sleep, baby.”

All of that feels like something he dreamed, everything hazy and soft. He remembered waking up in the morning and feeling that rush of embarrassment again, but the kitchen was spotless, and Eliot was asleep on the couch with Helena sprawled out on his chest, and Quentin had just felt grateful.

It’s been another rough night, and they’ve just managed to settle Helena in her crib, finally. Quentin feels Eliot’s forehead drop onto his shoulder, and his arms wrap around Quentin’s waist from behind.

“’M gonna pass out,” Eliot mumbles, pressing his cheek to Quentin’s back, and then he hums sleepily and Quentin can feel it in his own chest.

“I think she’s asleep,” Quentin whispers, and Eliot hums again, like he’s agreeing. “Let’s get to bed before she changes her mind again. _Your daughter_ is incredibly stubborn.”

He can tell Eliot’s smiling even though he can’t see it, he can feel it, somehow.

“That’s my girl,” he agrees, a yawn puncturing his words.

He pulls away and they climb into bed, and Quentin sighs at the feeling of the cool, clean sheets. He would never have remembered to change them, but thank god, Eliot had, because that’s just how he is. Quentin looks over at Eliot, who is maybe already asleep, his hair falling in his face as he’s curled up on his side, his body curved toward Quentin’s. Quentin feels almost unbearably fond in that moment, and he has no idea what to do with it, but he feels like he should do _something_.

Even though Quentin is tired, he’s so tired, he whispers, “El,” and Eliot doesn’t open his eyes but makes a sleepy “hmm” sound, so Quentin knows he’s awake.

“Hey, um, I was thinking,” Quentin continues, keeping his voice low, their faces close to each other on their pillows.

Eliot groans and does open his eyes at that. “You were _thinking_? Right now? Can we maybe save the thinking until tomorrow?”

For a second Quentin considers it, considers saying “never mind” and just bringing this up another time when they’re not both completely exhausted, but for some reason it feels important to say right now.

“We never gave Helena a middle name,” Quentin says, rushed, and Eliot looks more awake now. “I was just thinking...she should maybe have one?”

Eliot reaches out and gently tucks Quentin’s hair behind his ear. “Okay. We can do that. Brainstorming starts tomorrow, though, I’m so—”

“I um, I have an idea. If you want to hear it,” Quentin blurts out, and Eliot smiles, amused.

“It kinda sounds like you want to tell me,” he says, and his fingers are still gently running through Quentin’s hair, just how Quentin likes.

Quentin swallows, his throat dry from nerves, and nods. “Yeah. Um. What do you think about…Helena Margo.”

Eliot’s fingers in Quentin’s hair still, and he blinks, once, twice.

“Q,” he whispers, and then he doesn’t say anything else at all, even though it looks like he wants to, and Quentin understands.

“Yeah?” he asks, and Eliot nods, his eyes suspiciously shiny, and leans in and presses a gentle kiss to Quentin’s mouth.

When he pulls away, they just look at each other for a moment, and then Eliot manages to say, “When we tell her, I bet Bambi’s gonna try really hard not to cry but she will anyway, and she’ll be mad about crying.”

Quentin thinks about his conversation with Margo about Helena, how she’d gently brushed her hair back from her face, despite claiming to not like babies, and how fiercely she’d said _I’d die for her_.

Quentin smiles as Eliot pulls him close. “Oh yeah, definitely.”

Eliot kisses him again, soft, and then again and again. Quentin settles into the bed, into Eliot’s arms, and Eliot just kisses him and holds him and Quentin doesn’t remember falling asleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Margo is sure to have some more juicy hexxit content coming soon...


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summer is a season for: weddings, flashbacks to that time you had an egg hangover, iced coffee, and baristas named Chad. Kady is just here for the breakfast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Long time no see! Apologies for the delay, and we hope you and yours are holding up in this quite different world we find ourselves in 9 months later. Note the updated chapter count: there will now be six chapters, with just the big finale + epilogue to go after this. Thank you so much for all your support of this fic!

Kady and Penny are woken up by Margo banging on their bedroom door. She’s hollering that there’s some big announcement and they’re having a “house meeting” in the kitchen in five minutes. 

Of course this would happen the one morning they don’t have a sound ward up. Because _someone _(Penny) had taken it down yesterday when he was babysitting and _swore _he would remember to put it back up before they went to bed. 

He didn’t. Then again, it’s not like Kady remembered to check, either, so. Whatever. 

“Fuck off,” Kady yells. She can’t quite make out Margo’s response, but thinks she picks up on the gist. 

“She doesn’t even technically live here,” Penny points out, grumbling into his pillow. 

Honestly, they need to think about getting their own place soon. Or...this is technically her apartment. She stole it from Marina, fair and square. Maybe they should just kick everyone else _out_. 

Wait. Shit. Baba Yaga wouldn’t like that. And they’d lose out on the free rent she’d promised as long as the baby lives there. Can’t have the baby without Eliot and Coldwater, and they’re like a package deal with everyone else.

Oh well. The baby _is _pretty damn cute, and Eliot takes care of all the groceries and cleaning, so. It’s chill.

_Mostly_ chill. 

“We could ignore her,” Kady says on a yawn, glaring up at the ceiling.

Penny sighs. “Yeah, but she’d never let us hear the end of it.”

“You’re kinda scared of her, huh,” Kady snorts out a laugh and teasingly nudges Penny with her foot. 

“I mean, yeah,” Penny says, shrugging. “Like, you know. Respectfully.”

Kady nods. She gets that.

“But you’re scared of me, too, right?” she asks, and leans over to playfully bite at the curve of his neck.

“Oh yeah. Definitely. You’re the most intimidating,” Penny agrees. “It’s hot.”

This promising line of conversation is interrupted by an annoyingly loud clattering noise coming from the kitchen, and an annoyingly loud voice (Josh—apparently he’s been summoned all the way from Fillory?) and the not-annoying smell of coffee brewing. 

“Eliot better be making breakfast.”

“You know how obsessed he is with making Coldwater eat regular meals,” Penny rolls his eyes, and as if by silent agreement, they push back the covers and slide out of their respective sides of the bed. 

Everyone else is already gathered around the kitchen island, sipping coffee and munching on pastries, presumably courtesy of Josh and the Fillory kitchens. 

Eliot is, mercifully, in one of his many aprons, and working away at the stove. Everyone else is seated at the bar stools around the counter (with Helena in Quentin’s lap). 

Well, except for Margo, who is standing with her hands on her hips, tapping her foot in anticipation or annoyance, or maybe both. 

“Okay, we’re awake against our will, we’re here, what’s the big announcement.”

Margo doesn’t even comment on the sarcasm, so this must be big. She just turns to Quentin and raises her eyebrows expectantly.

Quentin looks back at her like he wasn’t expecting to be the one to deliver this news.

Kady can’t blame him. It sort of seemed like this was Margo’s shit to tell, but whatever. Personally, she’s just here for the food. Damn, this danish is fucking killer.

“Oh. Okay. Well.” Quentin clears his throat and shifts the baby on his lap. “Eliot and I realized we still hadn’t given Helena a middle name. And we um...wanted it to be special. So—”

With that, he lifts Helena up slightly, like he’s presenting her for inspection. For a baby, she’s pretty chill, so she just blinks at all of them and then lets out a little giggle when Penny pulls a face at her—he really loves this baby. Which is...not a turn-off. 

Margo snaps her fingers. “Eliot. Hello. Major announcement about your child happening over here.”

Eliot mutters something under his breath and then dutifully turns around to join the rest of them. Really can’t argue with Margo’s results.

The sooner they get this over with, the sooner Eliot can get back to making breakfast.

Helena is patiently bearing being hoisted in the air like in some weird Lion King pose. Seriously, she’s so unfazed by most shit. This lack of drama is clearly not something she got from either of her weirdo dads.

Catching Kady’s eye, Julia lays her hand on Quentin’s arm and says, in the most Julia way possible, “Um, Q, as much as we all you know, love being included in all of this, I think we’d also like to eat soon.” 

Fuckin’ Julia, bless her. 

Quentin nods. “Right, sorry. Uh, so, everyone, this is...Helena Margo.” 

He, Eliot, and Margo, obviously, look absolutely thrilled about it. 

“Oh, that’s beautiful. So regal,” Julia says, and takes one of Helena’s tiny hands in her own. “Nice to meet you, madam.”

She and Quentin laugh. Nerds.

Satisfied with Julia’s reaction, Margo turns to the rest of the group. “Well? Thoughts?” 

Kady nods. She takes a sip of coffee.

“Helena Margo. Cool.”

“That’s all you have to say?” Margo looks incredulous.

“Yeah. It’s a cool name. So I said cool.”

Kady wonders how long the Helena part is going to last with the way the allure of _Margo Junior _is shining in Margo’s eyes.

“Hey,” says Penny, “why isn’t Josh saying anything.”

“It’s not like you said anything either,” Eliot notes.

“No, El, he’s right,” Margo says, “Penny is Penny, no offense.”

“None taken.”

“Josh loves milestones, Josh loves middle names, Josh loves any sentimental bullshit. Josh should be celebrating.” Margo turns to advance on Josh, “This is a big day for Quentin and Eliot and you’re being a little raincloud bitch about it. Spill.”

As far as Kady is aware, telling your friends your kid’s middle name doesn’t fall under “big days,” but Margo’s got the power of her newly realized Margo Junior driving her so Kady’s not gonna question it.

“Do you think naming the baby after Margo is um, not that it’s bad, but do you...”

“You better think carefully about the next words out of your mouth.”

“No it’s just, well. Room full of goyim. Kady, back me up with an explanation, here. I need your credibility,” Josh says.

Great. Now Josh needs backup to say one sentence. Normally you can’t shut the guy up. 

“It’s bad luck for Ashkenazi Jews to name a baby after a living family member.”

“There we go! Wise words from my Hebrew sister.”

And then Josh reaches out like he’s going to fist bump her.

Kady snorts and levels her gaze at Josh until she gets the satisfaction of him slowly lowering his fist. She makes a mental note not to let Josh get this comfortable.

Quentin follows Josh’s lowering fist with his eyes. When it’s safely down, he looks over at Kady like he’s seeking permission to talk. Good. She gives him a nod.

“Uh,” Quentin says, “so, Helena’s not Ashkenazi or...the other ones? So I think it’s safe.”

Fair enough.

“Sounds like you’ve got it all logicked it out,” she says, shrugging. “Pass me another one of those frosted danish things.” 

Hey, it’s not her magic kid.

Quentin looks for a second like he’s about to start second guessing his thinking on the issue. Then he nods and says, “Yeah, so I think we’ll stick with it.” 

“Too late anyway,” Margo says, eyes narrowed, “No takebacks.”

Josh is giving Kady this look, like he wants to have further discussion on the topic, but she’s not really interested in that happening, like, at all, so she pretends not to notice.

Some higher power or force or whatever is on her side, because a talking Fillory bunny drops onto the counter just then and announces _BIG NEWS. COMING OVER. _

Helena makes an excited noise and points at it, and then looks up at Quentin like, _are you guys seeing this_? Cute.

“Fen?” Margo looks over at Josh. “Everything was cool with the Lorians when you left earlier, right?”

“Yeah, as far as I know. She said she had it under control—"

Fen herself bursts through the door in the clock a moment later, bright-eyed and beaming. 

“So okay,” Margo says, visibly relieved. “This a ‘positive big news’ surprise visit.” 

“What?” Fen rushes over and grasps Margo’s hands in her own. “Oh, did I worry you? I’m so sorry. Everything is fine. Better than fine, actually!”

“Hold on,” Josh cuts in. “If Margo’s here, and I’m here, and you’re here, _then who’s flying the plane_?” 

Margo and Fen stare at him.

“It was a joke?” Josh offers weakly. 

“I’m sure if I were a child of Earth, I would find it very funny,” Fen says warmly with every apparent mark of sincerity.

Damn, she’s good. No wonder Margo wanted to keep her on as a co-ruler. Josh...must add something to the mix. Probably the pastries. 

“Uh huh,” Margo says, turning away from Josh completely. “So, what’s got you so hot to trot?”

Fen squeezes Margo’s hands and then pulls away to make a beeline for Eliot. 

“Eliot! I have the most amazing—oh, hello beautiful,” she says when she notices Quentin sitting there with the baby, ducking down so she’s at eye level with Helena, who reaches out to grab at her elaborate braid, which is dangling down over her shoulder. 

“Oh, you’re so strong! Yes, you are such a beautiful, strong girl, and your fathers are so lucky to—” Fen coos, clearly completely distracted. 

Damn. Someone needs to give that girl a baby, since clearly Eliot’s not going to do it. He has his hands full with this one, and also Quentin would probably murder him if he tried to go off and knock Fen up. Or...anyone. Which, of course, Quentin would deny in his annoying little _um, what? Eliot and I are just co-parenting this baby and fucking all the time but it’s completely casual _way. So annoying.

“Fen,” Eliot says, amused. “While I obviously agree my daughter is the most perfect specimen ever produced by humankind, did you have something to tell me?”

This snaps Fen out of her baby-haze and she straightens up, bounces over to Eliot and throws her arms around him. He returns the gesture, a little hesitantly, and pats her gently on the back.

“Fray is getting married!” she practically shrieks when she pulls away. “Isn’t that the most wonderful news?”

Fray? Oh, right. Fen and Eliot’s not-fairy not-daughter. 

“Isn’t she a little young?” Eliot says, frowning.

“I mean, also she’s marrying a bear, like, literally,” Josh adds, nonchalantly.

A bear? What the fuck.

“Fray is eighteen,” Fen says, gazing up at Eliot, clearly a little put-out that he isn’t as excited as she is by her big announcement. “And her betrothed is also very young. The talking bear species live to be very old, and so they aren’t considered mature until—” 

“Wait, hold on, a _bear _bear?” Penny cuts in.

“Oh yeah, dude, have you never met Humbledrum?” Josh says. “Super chill guy. Always gives me free mead when I go to the pub.”

Kady catches Penny’s eye and he just rolls his eyes and shrugs. Yeah. Sure, why not. Makes about as much sense as anything else around here.

“I like that bear,” Margo says approvingly. “He’s the reason I was elected High King, and their right to get married was technically my election platform. So I say good for those crazy kids.” 

“Yes, of course, I am all for equal opportunity romance, obviously, who cares about the bear thing,” Eliot says, waving a hand dismissively, “It’s not that. It’s just…eighteen? When I was that age…”

Fen makes a cooing noise and pats Eliot’s arm. “You are so sweet to worry for her. But they’re very happy together, and both very responsible. And the pub is doing very well financially; better than ever, actually! Fray has a good head for numbers.”

Married and a business owner at eighteen. Not too shabby, though personally Kady thinks it sounds like a nightmare, but okay, it’s not her life.

Quentin shrugs and says, “Um, I mean, culturally, Fillory has different, like, rules, when it comes to this kind of thing? And actually, what we think of as a norm is usually a fairly recent—” 

Oh man, he’s off.

“Okay, Q, I don’t think we need a whole lecture on cultural relativism right now,” Julia laughs, cutting him off, mercifully. 

Eliot is still frowning a little. “I just want her to be happy,” he says, which is actually really sweet.

Fen clearly thinks so, based on the high-pitched _awwww_ noise she makes as she throws her arms around him again. “You are such a good father,” she sighs.

Quentin, who Kady just happens to glance at, also clearly agrees. The look on his face is so open and obvious, it makes her feel uncomfortable—which in general, she’d say isn’t really easy to do. She has to look away.

These idiots have made her life so unnecessarily awkward. Fuck. 

Anyway, Fen assures them they’ll all be invited to the wedding and to stay tuned for more details. It’s going to be soon. Apparently, bears are all about short engagements. 

“Hey Fen, did I mention that this little bundle of joy is now my namesake?” Margo says, casually, when, clearly she didn’t mention it, and everyone knows that.

Fen reacts to the “Helena Margo” news by leaning down to kiss Helena on one of her fat cheeks, then grabbing Margo and whirling her around in a tight hug while saying, “Margo, that’s amazing, I’m so happy for you!”

“Yeah, see, thank you,” Margo says, once she’s regained her balance. “That’s more of what I was looking for.”

Kady rolls her eyes and waits for Eliot to get back to finishing up their breakfast. She’s going to need a nap after all of this.

-

_YOU ARE INVITED. YAY._ The black-and-white bunny intones it’s message gravely as it drops onto the kitchen counter at no particular time on a Wednesday evening.

Quentin barely startles in the process of doing dishes, because it’s a regular enough occurrence now. He can even tell, despite the deadpan tone that all the messenger rabbits have, that this one is from Fen. The exclamation points are, if not actually present, understood.

The bunny hops toward him, as if to draw his attention to the envelopes tied around its neck with bright blue ribbon. Quentin dries his hands, and carefully extracts the letters, and gives the bunny a pat on the head while he’s at it. 

There are seven envelopes, each adorned with a flourishing calligraphy script, bearing the names of everyone who lives in the penthouse full time. Fray’s wedding invitations, Quentin thinks, as he shuffles through the envelopes. He smiles and feels a little jolt in his stomach as he gets to the last one, which is addressed to _Miss Helena Margo Coldwater-Waugh_.

They haven’t really…talked about a last name for Helena. This is the logical conclusion, though, and Quentin can’t help but think about how they didn’t really talk about it the last time either, it had just happened. They didn’t really do last names in the same way in Fillory, so it was more of a formality, but when an excited five-year-old Teddy ran up and said, “Daddy, can you put my name on my drawing for me?” the look on Eliot’s face when Quentin had written it down on a piece of parchment…it meant something, then.

Quentin runs his thumb over the shiny ink and breathes through the rush of emotion that comes with this particular memory, which is so bright and sharp, as if it happened last week instead of hundreds of years ago to another version of himself. It doesn’t hurt, exactly, but he doesn’t think he’ll ever be used to it.

_I love you_, Quentin thinks, picturing Teddy’s sweet little face as he proudly held out his colorful picture, which was three taller figures and a smaller one, standing outside what was clearly their little cottage, next to the mosaic. Teddy always included Arielle in his drawings of their family, even though he barely remembered her, beyond her bright red hair and how she made him feel loved. He had her smile. And Quentin’s eyes, Eliot always said, fondly.

Quentin is jolted out of his thoughts by Eliot himself, who walks in with Helena held in one arm. Quentin smiles when he sees them, feeling instantly soothed.

Helena babbles and holds out her arms to him—which is never, never going to get old—and he and Eliot do a swap, baby for the stack of envelopes. Helena’s is on top, and Quentin carefully tucks the baby against his chest, smiles when she lets out a contented sigh and reaches up to grab a fistful of his hair, and watches Eliot’s face even more carefully.

Eliot takes in the writing on the envelope with a thoughtful expression, pauses, and then carefully undoes the wax seal to open it. He pulls out the parchment and after a second, says in quiet amusement, “What do you think the appropriate attire for an infant at a talking bear’s wedding is?”

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” Quentin says, knowing that it’s a challenge Eliot will relish. “It’s um…nice of Fray to send an invitation for Helena. I guess they’re sort of like…sisters, aren’t they? In a way?”

At that, Eliot looks up, seemingly startled, but after a second, his face relaxes into a smile. “Yeah. I guess they are,” he says, his voice full of surprised pleasure that Quentin recognizes as Eliot going through the unnatural-to-him process of accepting that something good is happening. He also knows Eliot well enough not to push it, just to let the moment sit.

They send the messenger bunny back with a _SEE YOU SOON_ (after Helena gets in a few enthusiastic pets, of course), settle Helena into her high chair with a teething ring, and they return to the task of attempting to finish the seemingly insurmountable pile of dishes that had accumulated what with the whole “six grown adults and one baby live in this apartment and also we’re trying to save the world from evil magic fascists” situation they have going on.

It’s peaceful, with Helena making babbling and cooing noises, and Eliot humming something under his breath that Quentin can’t quite make out, but enjoys nonetheless, as they stand side by side at the sink and scrub pots and pans.

Nothing in particular happens, but Quentin can feel the moment when Eliot goes still, and suddenly the easy, comfortable near-silence is one of anticipation.

“Hey,” Eliot says, and clears his throat.

“Hey,” Quentin replies, and bumps his shoulder against Eliot’s arm teasingly. “What’s up?”

Eliot sets the pan he’s been meticulously drying down on the counter and turns towards Quentin, carefully. Quentin, not sure what’s happening or where to look, ends up shooting glances in Eliot’s direction as he methodically continues cleaning the pot in his hands.

“Do you want to go to Fray’s wedding with me?” Eliot asks in a rush, and…does he sound _nervous_ about it?

Quentin turns to look at Eliot then, his hands stilling in the soapy water.

“Oh,” he says, genuinely surprised. “I mean, of course. We have to accompany Helena to her official Fillory debut, right?”

To Quentin, this seems obvious, of course they’re going to the wedding together, with their daughter, but Eliot smiles like he’s relieved and like it’s the best news he’s heard all day. Which, to be fair, it probably is; he’s spent all day alternating between doing loads of baby laundry and trying to help Alice sort through stacks of documents she’d managed to steal from the Library and were apparently important, but were also incomprehensible and dull. Quentin had somehow managed to avoid helping, which he’s not too upset about.

“Okay,” Eliot says, his eyes and voice soft. “It’s a date.”

Quentin opens his mouth to say something back, but then Eliot’s touching his cheek and leaning down and kissing him, so gently. Whatever Quentin was going to say is lost and turns into a surprised sound that is muffled against Eliot’s mouth.

It’s soft and slow, not building to anything, like Eliot isn’t trying to get him into bed, just kissing him because he can. Like they do this all the time, kiss in the kitchen while they’re doing dishes.

Eliot moves his hand to cup the back of Quentin’s neck, the other gentle on his waist, and before Quentin realizes what he’s doing, he’s bringing his hands up to rest against Eliot’s chest, forgetting that they’re soaking wet and covered in soap bubbles.

He pulls away to apologize, but Eliot just laughs and brings his own hands up to cover Quentin’s and hold them still, even though his expensive shirt now has soapy handprints on it where Quentin touched him, is still touching him.

“Your shirt,” Quentin mumbles and Eliot presses another kiss to his mouth.

“Q, I’ve had our baby puke on my shirt twice today, this is a welcome change of pace.”

_Having kids really does change you_, Quentin thinks, vaguely, as Eliot smiles down at him and gently wraps his hands around Quentin’s wrists, as if he’s trying to ensure that Quentin won’t move away.

“Um,” Quentin starts, but is interrupted again, this time by Penny appearing seemingly out of nowhere, even though logically Quentin knows he just walked in through the front door.

“God, can’t you guys keep it to your room?” Penny groans. “Is nowhere safe anymore?”

“Fuck you, Penny,” Eliot says cheerfully, not moving his eyes away from Quentin, and Penny gives him the finger behind his back as he leans over Helena in her high chair and gives some very un-Penny like baby talk, which she eats up.

After what feels like forever but in reality is probably only a few more moments, Eliot steps away and they go back to their evening routine of putting Helena to bed and the rest of the gang filters in and excitedly opens their wedding invitations.

Eliot jokingly wonders what kind of fatherly advice you’re supposed to give in your toast when your daughter is marrying a talking bear, and Quentin stands there and feels unsettled for a reason he can’t put his finger on. Eliot’s happy. There’s going to be a wedding. Weddings are always nice.

“You okay?” Alice murmurs to him, her brow furrowed in concern.

“Yeah?” Quentin says, and he knows it comes out as a question, which does nothing to make Alice look at ease. “I mean, yeah. Everything is good.”

And it is. There is absolutely nothing wrong.

“Okay,” Alice says and he can tell she doesn’t quite believe him, but she doesn’t push it, which is good, because Quentin has the odd feeling he’s keeping something from her, even though he has no idea what it is.

-

“So, a Fillory wedding,” Julia says, in that way she has where Quentin knows she’s got something on her mind.

“Yep,” Quentin replies, and they watch Eliot, across the room, fuss over like, fabric swatches of _accent colors_ for their coordinated outfits, or something. 

He’s taken Quentin’s measurements twice already, with a warning that there was to be more measuring and trying on outfits in his future. Quentin complains a little and Eliot calls him a brat, because that’s what they do. But really, it’s nice to see Eliot so engaged in something. Quentin loves to watch him work, the precise and methodical way he goes about a project. He’d loved it at the mosaic, too, and sometimes would just stop and stare at Eliot as he concentrated on the current pattern. His eyes, intense and focused, and his beautiful, strong hands, careful and confident, the same way they move over Quentin’s body when they’re in bed. 

Quentin shivers and tries to push away thoughts of Eliot hovering over him, grasping his thighs with his big, perfect hands, holding him open and—

“Summer is wedding season,” Julia says, looking thoughtful, “Maybe something’s in the air.”

Quentin sighs, because she’s doing her wise and cryptic thing, and he wishes she’d just get on with it.

“Oh, did that guy from the falafel place finally ask you out?” he asks dryly--the regular cashier at their favorite place around the corner is clearly in love with her, in a very respectful and shy way, and it’s really funny, to Quentin. Julia bears it with grace, as she does with most everything. 

“Congratulations. Free falafel for life.”

Julia shoots him an amused glance, and then turns her gaze back to Eliot, who is apparently agonizing over different colors of giant baby hair bows. Quentin smiles, doesn’t even mean to, can’t help it.

“No, I was just thinking…it’s nice, you know? I mean, who would’ve thought when we were reading the Fillory books as kids that one day we’d get to go to a talking bear’s wedding?”

It is pretty awesome. Quentin is honestly looking forward to it, even though he’s never been a big fan of weddings in the past, although to be fair the only weddings he’d attended had been family events, and he’d been too young to drink and too awkward to dance. 

“Yeah, Josh says the bears really know how to party. I mean, it’s…still kind of weird that Eliot’s daughter is marrying a literal bear, but, you know. Fillory.”

Julia nods. “Weird, but it’s romantic, don’t you think? Like, _you never know who might be the one_. Hey, isn’t that what your horoscope said?”

“I know what you’re doing,” he says, because it could not be more pointed, and he knows she knows that.

Julia’s got that familiar glint in her eyes now, and she’s clearly trying not to smile, the corners of her mouth turned up ever so slightly. “Q, I have no idea what you’re talking about, I’m just quoting your horoscope.”

“My horoscope from like, twelve years ago,” Quentin feels the need to add.

“Hey, when the stars are right, they’re right!”

“Okay, well, you can tell _the stars, _like I already said, Eliot doesn’t—”

Julia’s almost smile turns into a full grin. “Interesting.”

Quentin doesn’t even want to ask, but the next words out of his mouth are “I know I’m going to regret this, but, fine…what?”

Julia shrugs, now feigning nonchalance. “Oh, nothing. Just, you know, I never said anything about Eliot.”

Quentin blinks at her, unimpressed. Replaying the conversation in his head, he realizes she never actually said Eliot’s name, but like, it was heavily implied, and it’s not Quentin’s fault for following the most logical train of thought, given their previous—god, fuck this.

“Okay, haha, you got me, are you satisfied?”

Julia doesn’t answer, just makes a big show of thinking something over in her head, like they don’t know exactly what it says, _someone tall and handsome_.

“You think he’s…” she starts to say, and pauses with a considering look on her face. And Quentin’s about to be so offended on so many levels, and he can tell it shows on his face, because Julia looks absolutely delighted, and she chooses that moment to finish “…tall?”

For a second they just stare at each other, and then they both start laughing at the same moment, and then they can’t stop.

-

Unsurprisingly, Quentin starts thinking a lot about his dad. 

It’s a consistent thread of melancholy twining it’s way through what is mostly an absurdly happy time. Emphasis on the absurd. 

Quentin’s dad is dead and now _Quentin’s_ a dad, in less than a year. Well, he’s a dad _again_. Because when he stood in his dad’s living room in New Jersey and told him that he was going to make a decision that would lead to his death, he’d still felt like a father. His son was older than he was, his son had sons, his son was dead long on an alien planet before Quentin’s own father had even been born, but that’s how Quentin had felt. It wasn’t something you could unbecome. 

Except, with magic’s familiar cruelty, it actually was. 

So it wasn’t something you could _unknow_, maybe.

Quentin doesn’t remember ever consciously thinking about whether or not he wanted kids. The answer was ‘_yeah, probably’_ in a rather passive way. It was what people did. They fell in love, got married, had kids. 

So the force of his hunger, when it appeared seemingly overnight shortly after he and Arielle got married, surprised him. It was like the world was suddenly empty, with only one thing that could possibly fill it. Not that his life was empty, no: it was rather that he had so very much. Arielle, Eliot, the curtains in the window, the garden in bloom, the life that had slowly and mostly by accident, and always with the sense of the provisional, been crafted by first the two and then the three of them. But abruptly it was like that abundance had been made deliberately for one thing and one thing only. The only thing that could possibly complete it, complete _them_. There was a space and in that space was a child that somehow looked and talked like both Arielle and Eliot and maybe a little like Quentin too. He was scared to express this to Eliot, what he and Arielle sometimes whispered between them. Eliot still frequently referred to a future where this would all be gone, where they solved the puzzle and went back to their own world and time and friends and responsibilities that all felt increasingly alien. 

Teddy came and filled that space. Filled every inch of Quentin to overflowing. 

It was, Quentin thinks, the only thing he’d ever been truly good at. It was Quentin’s best self. Not that he was less anxious than Arielle about all the ways it could go wrong. Not that the thought of his own parents and their failures and the ways a person could fuck a kid up filled him with less dread than they did Eliot. At first he was so frightened by the conviction that he’d made a mistake, that he wasn’t cut out for this. But he came to realize the three of them together could do it. He felt the brilliant growth of a faith in this akin to the kind he’d once had in magic. They just had to love him, right. That’s it. They could do that. Everything else wasn’t so hard. 

This had all been stirred up by the incident with Poppy and the dragon egg, which happened several weeks before Helena had arrived. 

_“Q?”_

_ Twinned voices, the two voices he’s always most happy to hear, but at this moment they just cause Quentin to internally curse. They can’t be here. They won’t understand, and they’ll try to ruin Quentin’s happiness._

_Still, Quentin slowly turns to face them. The expressions on their faces are shocked. They must look much like Quentin had, when Poppy had opened the cottage door wide and he’d seen her pregnant belly. Well, maybe not _quite_ how Quentin had. Neither of them, as far as he knew, had the requisite knowledge for the thought that had instantly appeared in Quentin’s mind, as his memory flashed unwillingly back to Poppy above him, removing her bra, that maybe, just possibly—_

_From the way that shock is fading to dismay, Quentin feels he’s right that they won’t understand. They would think him, just as he had thought of himself, completely ridiculous to feel for just a moment, at the thought of Poppy’s child being his, something almost like excitement._

_They won’t get it. They won’t grasp what Quentin now understands: that his first thought was laughable only for it’s object. Quentin was destined for a greater purpose, a greater fatherhood. _

_For Falcor. _

_He wants to assure them that this is something to be happy about. He wants to share his joy, his radiant love, with them. Especially with—_

_A lance of pained embarrassment follows that involuntary thought. Eliot would definitely not understand. Eliot had given no signs of sharing Quentin’s yearning. Would not rejoice in this admittedly unexpected fulfilment. _

_Protecting Falcor is paramount. So he opens his mouth and says, “I’m going to be a dad,” lets them draw the most obvious conclusion. Eliot’s face instantly shutters closed, difficult to read. _

_Julia and Eliot retreat to the corner. Quentin putters around, doing meaningless tasks to distract them from the hidden egg. Of course Penny and Kady show up. That’s exactly what Quentin needs. And of course they all figure it out. _

_The hot spike of betrayal as Eliot holds the egg in gloved hands, as they plan to take Falcor from him, causes a white out of rage and despair in Quentin. Why would Eliot try to take this from him? Falcor was his, he loved—it? Him? Her?—whatever Falcor was or decided to be Quentin loved already, a suffocating overwhelming love that he can’t believe he’d ever been able to put aside, to even halfway forget. Why had it been so easy for Eliot to forget?_

_“Why do I want to lick this egg? I want to lick this egg.”_

_“Eliot, don’t— “ Julia pleads._

_“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Penny says._

_The pink dart of Eliot’s tongue against the opalescent curve of Falcor’s egg. Quentin experiences a heady rush of relief. Now Eliot will understand and Eliot will be with him. Quentin wants Eliot with him. So badly it hurts. How could he ever want to do this without Eliot? Quentin and Eliot’s eyes meet over the egg and Quentin thinks, for just a moment , he sees something in Eliot’s eyes, he looks—_

_“Egg beats oven mitts, bitch! Now you’re my sister-wife.” _

_Poppy rejoices and Quentin wants to as well, but Eliot jerks back from the egg, eyes going wide. His face freezes, his chest heaves. He holds Falcor as far from his body as is possible without relinquishing it altogether. Which Julia, traitorous Julia, is still trying to convince him to do. Quentin feels a bitter stab of disappointment. Of course, Eliot doesn’t want this. Of course last time, Quentin had just trapped him into it, when he couldn’t escape. Somewhere far in the embattled logical regions of Quentin’s brain is an inkling that there is some magical force working on his easily primed emotions. He knows it intellectually but this furious hurt that Eliot is even resistant to the power of mystical baby dragon pheromones is drowned out by waves of love and protectiveness, by a powerful feeling of—well, of something, when only having Sam’s gun trained on him is sufficient to force Eliot to hand the egg over. _

_Then the docks, Eliot quiet and avoiding Quentin’s eye all the way there. Quentin feels like something is being physically ripped from his body when the basket with Falcor in it is lowered into the water. He wants to jump in after it, and is only restrained by Eliot’s hand clamping down on his shoulder. “Q—”_

_The skin around Eliot’s mouth is white and his eyes are wild but other than that he’s given no sign that he’s been affected, that he’s had something torn from the middle of him, and Quentin is freshly enraged. “Why don’t you care about Falcor!” he wails. Eliot opens his mouth but no words come out. _

_With the prescience of long experience, even Quentin’s clouded mind knows this will be a source of humiliation later. _

_Alice’s mouth drops open when they walk into the penthouse and she catches sight of Poppy. She looks from her, to Quentin, and back again. “...Congratulations?”_

_Oh, fuck, Quentin thinks as Eliot says flatly, “_What_?” _

_“Well—” Alice stutters before falling silent, but the whole story is there on her face. _

_After that Eliot grabs a couple of eggs from the carton and makes himself scarce. _

_Poppy finds Quentin. As the egg fever fades Quentin finds himself doing some hasty math in his head. It was about nine months ago that he and Poppy had slept together, right? Or was it ten? _

_He can’t imagine Poppy as a mother. He’s worried for the kid, given what he knows of Poppy’s morals and life choices. He thinks of that absurd moment of hope, back at the cottage. That this might be a way to give back to him something he’s lost, a self he’s lost. _

_“I never even thought about being a mom, you know? And then I found out, and—”_

_Quentin jumps in with his own experience, anxious to be understood by someone. “You realized you wanted to.”_

_“Oh god no.”_

_(He has to ask. “Is it mine?”_

_“No. Why, did you want it to be?” A beat, and then the kick in the chest. “You think you’ll ever be a dad.”_

_“I hope so.”)_

_After Poppy leaves Eliot slinks back out of wherever he’d hidden himself. Quentin is slumped over in his chair, staring off into space. He feels another great wash of bitterness at seeing Eliot’s face. Poppy had said that the force the egg exerted had been enough to make even her feel a maternal tug. But Eliot seems unaffected. _

_“So _are_ congratulations in order?” Eliot says when he sits down in the seat Poppy’s vacated. _

_“Why the fuck would the prospect of having to coparent with a sociopath be something to congratulate me about?” Quentin says hotly. “But no. It’s not mine, Eliot.”_

_Eliot gives a long sigh. “Oh. That's—that’s good.”_

_Right. Fantastic. _

_It’s late, and Quentin’s exhausted. He doesn’t really want to talk to Eliot, but he’s also afraid of the moment Eliot leaves. The hangover from whatever hormonal stew they’d been swimming in is turning out to be a bitch. Earlier, when they’d first gotten back to the penthouse, it had taken all of Quentin’s willpower not to tackle Eliot to the floor, to beg Eliot to take him, fill him up, give him a—_

_Christ. _

_Now he’s just tired. But he doesn’t want Eliot to get up and go to his room, which Quentin only sleeps in after they fuck. He misses it so bad, just falling asleep beside someone after brushing your teeth together, drifting off in the dark to the sound of Eliot’s sleepy murmur. _

_There’s one surefire way Quentin knows to secure Eliot’s warmth, his body against Quentin’s. He leans over and kisses him, a pathetic kiss, ungraceful and unenthusiastic. Eliot’s mouth is stiff and unyielding under his. _

_Quentin immediately pulls back. “Sorry, I—” _

_At the same moment Eliot says, “Quentin, I don’t think—”_

_They both stop and look at each other, bewildered. Eliot is the first to speak again._

_“Q, let’s just...go to bed.” _

_Disappointment and relief struggle within him. He doesn’t want to go to sleep in his bed alone, but he’s never felt less turned on his life. “Right, yeah.”_

_He must not have kept how crestfallen and defeated he is out of his tone, because Eliot says, very hesitantly, “I mean, come to bed with me. Just to sleep. It’s been a really fucking weird day.”_

_Quentin is hit by a memory of one of the few nights after the mosaic that he spent in Whitespire, sleeping in the big royal bedroom that had never truly been his and the sense memory of the mosaic still so strong and going out of his mind with how much he did not want to be sleeping alone, with how much he craved Eliot. So hating himself he’d gotten up and walked through the silent passages to Eliot’s room and hadn’t had the courage to knock. On opening the door he’d seen the white of Eliot’s wide-awake eyes turned towards him in the shaft of flickering lamplight from the hallway. Without saying a word, Eliot lifted the covers and Quentin crawled in beside him, turned his back to Eliot. Waiting with baited breath until he felt the comforting weight of Eliot’s arm settle over Quentin’s hip, the breadth of his chest against Quentin’s spine. _

_They’d never talked about it. Quentin almost wondered if he’d dreamed it._

_Eliot looks doubtful, as if he’s considering rescinding his invitation, so Quentin stands up and offers his hand to Eliot, and without either of them speaking another word he leads them to Eliot’s room. _

All of it inevitably leads back to his dad. One night Josh is on Earth and dinner descends into sharing stories about various adventures he’s missed and Poppy and the dragon egg takes top billing. 

Eliot is holding Helena in his lap, having to repeatedly pry her curious fat baby fingers off spoon handles and telekinetically righting wineglass knocked over by her flailing limbs. Everyone’s laughing, Quentin included, although he’s also pink in the face. _We didn’t know how bad you had it Q_, _but now with hindsight we can read the signs_ and _You never actually shook it off, huh?_ It’s still kind of embarrassing, but well, he did magically manifest a baby, and everyone’s been so good about it, he has the best friends in the world, the best—_Eliot_—and the best most beautiful baby. He’s so happy. He wouldn’t change a single thing. Every choice and decision and failure he’s made has all been worth it because it all led right here, to this single moment—

Quentin is standing without even realizing he’s done so, with such quickness that the chair rocks back on its legs. “Sorry, um, excuse me—” he grits out before bolting from the dining room. He knows everyone will probably think he’s just being thin-skinned so he forces himself to slow down and walk normally in the direction of the bathroom.

His dad, his fucking dad. The last time he saw his father alive. Quentin gives his lost happiness in an unlived life up as a gift to Ted. He’d wanted so badly to share it all with him. Arielle’s bright laugh and the nautilus of Teddy’s tiny curled fist and how in love with Eliot he’d been. 

He wanted to say to his dad that he got it now, that he understood his father so much better than he ever had now that he was a father too. He now understood his father’s successes, in the way Quentin had always felt the bedrock of his father’s love strong beneath him, despite the failures that he also knows better and forgives more easily, all the ways in which Quentin felt his father had never understood him, the times it had felt as if they were speaking to each other through thick glass.

Quentin had wanted to say all this but he didn’t have the words. He could only offer up the same comfort to his father that he himself had turned to time and again about Teddy—to the evidence that in spite of whatever errors he had made, his son had grown, and was his own person that Quentin could take pride in, and that he was happy. 

He'd certainly not felt happy or successful or very grown then, in his father’s living room. So Quentin had to offer up to his father ghosts that his father could infer as promises if he needed: that someday Quentin would be alright, that such a miracle had come to pass before. 

He hadn’t had the foresight to know that when his father was dead he would simply want to be a son again, Ted Coldwater’s fallible unworthy son. To say nothing more than that he loved him, and again that he was sorry, he was so sorry. 

Sorry, sorry, sorry that he couldn’t be sorry, because if he hadn’t brought magic back then he wouldn’t have Helena and he can’t unknow what it is to love her either.

God, he’s the worst son in the world. It occurs to him for the first time that his mother has no idea Helena even exists, that she has a granddaughter. He hasn’t even thought to call her. His mom is far from perfect, but still. What the fuck was wrong with him?

Quentin leans his head against the back of the bathroom door and hyperventilates as it all washes over him. 

He dimly registers the sound of someone knocking through the white roar in his ears, but can’t find it within him to do anything about it. Then the door opens, hitting him in the forehead.

“Oh, god, baby, I’m so sorry.” Eliot’s warm hands on his face, smoothing his hair off his brow and kissing Quentin’s fingers where they’re clutching the tender spot. Stroking his thumbs below Quentin’s eyes, over his cheekbones, which Quentin realizes are wet with tears. “I didn’t hit you that hard, did I?”

“No, I’m okay. Where’s Helena?” The question is instinctual, automatic.

“Being passed around the table and overjoyed about it. If she stops being happy about it, we’ll know, believe me.” 

Quentin nods and gives in to the impulse to press his face into Eliot’s chest, to seek the comfort of his warmth, his smell. 

Eliot’s hand comes up to cradle the back of his head, fingers petting at the short hairs at the nape of his neck as he says, “If you’re sure I didn’t give you a concussion, what is it?” 

Quentin shudders closer, his hands coming up to grip the back of Eliot’s vest. “Talking about that time with the dragon egg, it got me upset, I don’t know why.”

The soothing motions of Eliot’s fingers freeze for a second before resuming, the pause barely perceptible. 

“Q, what everyone was joking about—I know what I said after Helena arrived. That it wasn’t your fault because of the aftereffects of the egg. But I know now that it wasn’t—I mean if it was just that, then _I_ could have been the one who…”

Huh? That’s nice of Eliot, Quentin guesses, although it’s a neat reminder that he can’t read Quentin’s mind. Also, like, Quentin was there. He remembers how different their reactions had been and even if they’d been the same, implying there was no deeper desire in Eliot for the dragon magic to push on is the opposite of comforting. 

“No, it’s just—it’s my dad,” he admits, voice muffled by Eliot’s shirt.

His voice cracks, and a heaving sob follows it into the suddenly fraught silence. Quentin can feel Eliot’s whole body go still, coiled to spring. Maybe they can’t read each other’s minds, but Quentin knows Eliot, and he can feel Eliot’s urge to bolt from the force of Quentin’s emotion. 

But he doesn’t. Eliot’s arms go around Quentin in a tight hug, his hand a reassuring weight on Quentin’s back as he asks, “What about your dad, honey?” 

_What_ about his dad, indeed? Quentin finds it hard to know how to put it into words, where to even start. “I don’t know. It’s been months so I’m not sure what about tonight set me off.”

“Q, I don’t think _months_ is a reasonable timeline to expect yourself to get over your dad dying.”

“I have a _baby_,” Quentin responds hysterically.

“We do indeed have a baby.” Eliot says this very evenly and without even a hint of a laugh, like he doesn’t know why Quentin might need confirmation of this basic fact but he takes the duty of providing it very seriously. 

Quentin doesn’t even know what he means. Maybe that he has a baby he’s responsible for and so he can’t have the total meltdown that he feels lying in wait like a vast pit he is standing on the ledge of and could fall into with one tiny step. But he’s missed his shot. He should have done it when he had the chance. Of course he believed there would be ample opportunity later, that there was nothing preventing him taking his sweet time processing the fact that his father was _dead_. That he could put off dealing with that fact for as long as he wanted and then lose his fucking mind at leisure. Now he can’t. The pit still yawns but there are hands snatching him back and he’s grateful for it and resentful of it at the same time.

He’s getting Eliot’s beautiful shirt wet with his snot and tears and Eliot isn’t saying a word. He presses his lips into the crown of Quentin’s head, and he’s almost rocking them both, swaying back and forth in a gentle motion on the stark bathroom tile. 

“I have a baby,” Quentin repeats, weeping. “I was looking at you holding Helena and she’s so perfect and I couldn’t stop thinking about how my dad will never get to meet her and how unfair that is.”

“God, Q,” Eliot breathes. “Fuck. I wish he could have met her too.” 

“No, you don’t understand,” Quentin insists, and he feels Eliot stiffen slightly. He pulls back but can’t bring himself to meet Eliot’s eyes so he covers his face with his hands and his laugh is a bit crazed as he says, “Because it’s so much more fucked than just wishing he could have met her. See, if I hadn’t brought back magic then my dad would still be alive. But if I hadn’t brought back magic then Helena wouldn’t even exist. They could literally never have met.”

“Ah,” Eliot says.

Shame wells up in Quentin, and he finally looks up at Eliot to have this shame reflected back at him. He just looks sad. Eliot’s luminous eyes, rich and deep with tears. 

“Fuck, why are _you_ crying?” Then they’re both laughing. Eliot gives Quentin his space but laces their fingers together, a tether to pull Quentin back to him if necessary. 

“Because I have no clue what to say. But I fucking wish I knew. I wish I knew what something I could say to make you less sad,” Eliot whispers when this their delirium passes. “I would give up, like, a finger, I’m serious.”

Quentin laughs again, in a congested, painful way. “Soon you wouldn’t have any fingers.”

“Worth it,” Eliot declares.

“No it fucking isn’t,” Quentin says, genuine horror in his voice, and Eliot smiles at him, slow and hot. Quentin rolls his eyes, his face heating. Clinical depression is a price he’s willing to pay for Eliot Waugh’s beautiful clever fingers, stroking his hair and holding their baby and moving in Quentin’s body. This is humiliating knowledge for Quentin to have and he guesses dangerous knowledge for Eliot to possess, but he can’t give a shit. 

“You can’t. It’s not possible. You know that. From fifty years of putting up with me, you know that.”

“I do. I do know,” Eliot agrees easily. “I still mean it.”

Quentin feels a new wave of tears burning in his eyes.

“I’m _not_ sad,” Quentin says, sounding like a child insisting they aren’t tired. “I’m not. That’s the thing. I am so fucking happy.” 

What does that say about Quentin? What kind of person can be this happy when their father is dead?

Eliot picks up Quentin’s hand and brings it to his mouth, presses a kiss to each knuckle. “I think,” he says delicately, “that happiness can be hard. In it’s own way.”

“I just wish he could meet her.” Quentin _feels_ like a child tonight. A child stubbornly and hopelessly for impossible things. “I wish he could see how happy I am, how wonderful she is. But he can’t.”

Eliot opens his mouth to offer whatever paltry comfort he can, but Quentin isn’t finished. There’s suddenly something it’s important for Eliot to know. “I told him. At the end of the quest. I told him about the mosaic. About Teddy, about Arielle. About you.”

Eliot jerks as if shocked. Fresh tears in his own eyes. “Really?” Softly, as if he can’t quite believe it, but that he wants to. As if this matters very much to him.

“_Yes_. I told him how amazing Teddy was. How happy we were. He knew that much at least. I thought that would be enough, but it isn’t. I wish he could have met Helena but for her to exist he had to die. Everything about how happy I am is literally impossible to show him because it couldn’t exist in any circumstances other than these. But this is what I was _meant_ for. So I can’t wish Helena away. I have to be grateful that I fucked up and brought magic back—because I think maybe I did fuck up. I realized at one point it wasn’t worth it but Helena makes it worth it, and how am I supposed to live with any of that—”

He chokes. Puts his hands to his face. This time Eliot doesn’t respect Quentin’s attempt at distance. He puts his hand on the back of Quentin’s neck and Quentin has no choice but to obey, to press his face into that perfect spot between Eliot’s neck and shoulder.

“I can’t wish it undone either. Not now that we have Helena. But Q, I think she would have existed anyway.”

Quentin’s scorn is scathing. “She _literally could not_.”

“No, listen.” Eliot’s voice is intense in a way Quentin finds hard to read. “I’m saying I think you’re right. That this was what was meant to happen. You as a dad. And no matter what, in some way—in some way that would have happened for you.” 

Quentin just feels drained as he tries to puzzle through this. “That’s kind of the opposite of comforting?” 

“I know.” Eliot’s chuckle is raspy, tired, the most comforting sound Quentin has ever heard. “I’m not very good at this.”

“You are,” Quentin mumbles. “No fingers required.” 

They just stand there a moment in near. The air conditioning kicks on. Silverware clinks and water runs as someone starts to clean up after dinner. 

“Can I make a suggestion? I think it might be good for you to— ”

He knows how this one goes. _I think you should talk to someone_. By which was always meant: _talk to a therapist_. By which was always meant: _not to me._ Eliot would honestly be correct, but Quentin still resents how often people fall back on that, whenever Quentin the basketcase expresses a feeling they can’t handle. 

But Eliot goes somewhere he doesn’t expect: “—talk to Alice.” 

Quentin pulls back to look at Eliot’s sheepish face. “Uh, really?”

“I’m not cocking out. You can talk to me about this or literally anything, anytime. But I admit feelings of grief for one’s father are not one of my very limited areas of expertise. At least this kind of grief, anyway.” 

Quentin squints suspiciously, wondering if he should start working up the energy for anger. 

“You aren’t imagining we’re just going to get so overwhelmed talking about our dead dads that we run off together, right?” Then he’s hit with worry that he’s edged too close to one of the things they can’t talk about. “Sorry. Just—you do remember _stepmom candidates_?”

Eliot opens his mouth and immediately closes it, visibly thinking through what he’s about to say. 

“I admit I have not been at my best on the subject of Alice Quinn,” is what he finally says, very carefully. “I’m working on it. She lost her dad recently too. I just think she might understand this better than I could. All I want is for you to have as much support as possible. You deserve—everything. You deserve all the people who love you.”

Eliot sounds kind of choked up. Quentin doesn’t know how to feel about the fact that Eliot is apparently not jealous of Alice anymore. Not that it was jealousy behind his snide comments about Alice, because why would Eliot be jealous? 

This speculation is washed away by Eliot’s murmured, “OK, baby?” By his thumbs stroking the skin behind Quentin’s ears as Quentin suddenly finds himself able to take his first deep breath in hours in the shelter provided by Eliot’s care, and Quentin once again remembering standing in front of his father and offering up the mosaic as comfort, a vision of happiness that he now realizes he’d shared partially because he didn’t believe it could be achieved again and this belief had been so total it led to the castle and his averted exile, and realizes he’d been wrong. He’d thought the thing that had made his life worthwhile could never come to pass again and he’d fallen back on outdated answers of magic and quests. So all he had to give to soothe the haunted look of worry in his father’s eyes whenever the subject of Quentin’s future came up was something irrevocably lost. The specific conditions that had led to Quentin’s long-term contentment and advanced age were not to be replicated. It had been a freak accident, a lucky miracle. 

He’d been wrong. Quentin had been so wrong, and he hurts with how much he wishes he could undo it and with how he can never wish to undo it. His friends’ laughter echoing off the empty wine glasses, the taste of good food made by Eliot’s hands, Helena’s ever toothier grin: Quentin’s happiness tonight so sharp it cuts. Now looking at Eliot he realizes that the conditions were right here with him all along. Because it was Eliot, always Eliot. The fundamental ingredient, the portable soil in which Quentin’s best self could take root and grow. 

Whatever else was imperfect and incomplete between them Eliot had been the one to make Quentin a _father_, in more ways than Quentin could express. Eliot is right. Even if Eliot’s comfort about Helena’s immutability is a kind falsehood. Even if without this luckiest of accidents brought about by Quentin’s yearning and the magic only purchased by his father’s loss he wouldn’t have gotten to be a parent with Eliot again. No matter how he acquired children and who he parented them with, in some way Quentin being a father would always owe itself to Eliot and to all the things loving Eliot had taught him. Even after Eliot had rejected him it had all still been within Quentin in that living room with his father. He just hadn’t been able to see it. 

There are apparently still more tears left in him tonight. He looks up at Eliot and says, too overwhelmed to care about how fucking desperately in love he must sound: “God, but maybe more than anything I wish my dad could have met _you—_”

Then: a baby’s unhappy wail, and both their heads turning towards the door at the same time. 

-

Logically, Quentin knows that whatever arrangement he and Eliot have worked out—if you can call it that, which, Quentin knows all too well, Julia and Margo definitely would not—is a tentative one, held together by silent agreement to carefully not talk about certain things. The thing is, it’s _working_. 

He’s...happy, unsettling as that thought was when he first shared it with Eliot, and still is, a little. It’s more than he ever thought he’d have, or deserve…waking up next to Eliot every morning and falling asleep together, sometimes with Helena between them on the bed, sometimes with her tucked safely in her crib nearby.

He’ll take it, for as long as he can, for as long as Eliot will let him. They’ll always be Helena’s parents, and Eliot will always be his best friend. He knows those things won’t change, that Eliot will always be a part of his life, in whatever form that takes. It’s more than Quentin thought he would ever get, and honestly, he just feels lucky. 

And when it’s time to move on to the next chapter of their lives…well, there’s not much point in worrying about it now. Raising their daughter, and also part-time helping save the world from various evil magical forces, those are Quentin’s priorities.

Honestly, it’s pretty easy, because they all live in their weird little bubble that everyone forms once they discover magic, not to mention Quentin’s life in particular revolves around the schedule of a 6-month-old baby. He pretty much just talks to the same people every day and goes to the same places (and one of those places happens to be a literal other world, but, you know). Falling into a routine always makes everything else fade away.

But occasionally, they’ll do something different, like take a trip to Starbucks because Julia insists that they need exercise and Quentin can’t remember the last time he or Eliot left the penthouse or was exposed to direct sunlight. They leave Helena behind with Kady and Penny, because “even the best dads need a little baby-free time,” according to Julia.

He has to admit, it is nice, walking down the shady street in no particular hurry and listening to Julia and Eliot joke about the most recent episode of The Bachelor. They’re obsessed. Quentin refuses to watch, mostly out of principle—“like, as a feminist…” he’d tried to explain, and Julia had just rolled her eyes at him and thrown a pillow at his head while Eliot hushed him because the commercial was over—but also he kind of likes the idea of Julia and Eliot having their own thing. They’ve come a long way since those tense early days at Brakebills.

Even the long wait for coffee on a Saturday morning isn’t so bad, as Quentin rolls his eyes and laughs at Julia and Eliot’s intense theorizing about what would happen during the hometown dates episode next week.

“Would you let our daughter go on this deranged tv show and get rejected by some loser?” Quentin demands, but he’s smiling, because he likes this. He likes when he and Eliot tease each other and for that moment, it’s like there’s no one else in the world Eliot would rather be paying attention to.

Eliot scoffs. “Please. Any child of mine would go in with a plan. We would prepare and she’d crush it. And getting rejected by the loser is fine, it just can’t happen too early.”

“Yeah Q, everybody knows the point is to come in second so you can be the next Bachelorette,” Julia adds, playfully shoving Quentin with her shoulder while he groans.

“_Exactly_,” Eliot says, and then their drinks are ready, and he walks away to go get them while Julia and Quentin hang out at a table.

Julia’s in the middle of telling him they really should buy reusable cups because single-use plastic is horrible for the environment, which like, duh Jules, everyone knows that, when Quentin looks over to see Eliot still over at the drink pick up area, flirting with the barista.

It’s been so long since he’s seen Eliot flirting with someone that for a second he can’t quite process it, but…that’s definitely what’s happening. And it’s not one-sided, either. The guy isn’t even that hot, Quentin thinks sourly, and also his nametag said his name was _Chad_, which, in Quentin’s opinion, is a dumb name. 

Whatever joke Eliot made probably isn’t even _that _funny that _Chad _would need to laugh so much.

Julia, unfortunately, picks up on what’s going on instantly, because of course she does.

“Huh,” she says, and drums her fingers on the table as if to punctuate her thought.

Quentin’s instinct is to snap _what? _but he bites it back and settles on, “It’s fine.”

It is fine. This was going to happen sooner or later. Probably better now than later, honestly. Things were getting a little too comfortable. He almost forgot—

Quentin would _prefer _if it didn’t happen while he was sitting right there, witnessing it all, but what can you do. Eliot is perfectly free to flirt with whoever the fuck he wants. So is Quentin. He could go flirt with a barista right now, if he felt like it. There is absolutely nothing stopping either of them from flirting with baristas.

And there’s also nothing stopping either of them from getting a barista’s phone number (or like, maybe his Instagram handle, do people text anymore?) on a receipt, which is clearly what’s happening now. And Eliot is folding the receipt and sliding it into the pocket of his vest, an easy smile on his face.

“You don’t look like it’s fine,” Julia insists, but gently.

“Well it is, it’s perfectly fine, and it’s not a big deal.”

That comes out a lot louder and harsher than Quentin planned, and the conversation at the table next to them suddenly stops.

“Um, sorry,” Quentin mumbles in that general direction and Julia reaches over and places her hand on top of his.

Quentin braces himself for a Discussion. Eliot, meanwhile, is still chatting it up with the barista, who has apparently forgotten that he’s supposed to be working.

“Okay, Q, listen,” Julia starts, and Quentin sighs. Here we go. “You know I’m rooting for you guys. But, _until _you work it all out, maybe…you should stop uh, _casually _sleeping with him?”

Quentin stares down at the table in an attempt to avoid Julia’s eyes and also not have to look over at Eliot.

Julia seems to take his silence as a cue to continue, which she does, hesitantly. “Also, um…I’m really sorry to have to bring this up, but are you guys, like, you know…using protection? Because—”

At that, Quentin jerks his hand out from under hers and covers his face.

“Oh my god, Jules, _ew_, stop—”

“I’m sorry, I’m just worried about your sexual health—”

“Okay, can you never say the words _sexual health _to me ever again, we’re not in 7th grade health class with Ms. What’s Her Face.”

“Yeah, you don’t have Ms. What’s Her Face anymore, you have me,” Julia insists. “And believe me, I would rather not be doing this. Also, don’t think I didn’t notice how you didn’t answer my question.”

Quentin lowers his hands from his face to glare at her and she sighs.

“Q, I’m just saying…you’re an adult and you can do what you want, but…look how upset you are at me implying that your _not boyfriend _may start sleeping with other people at some point. Which is…apparently okay for him to do? Right?”

“Jules,” Quentin says, pleading for…he’s not sure what, exactly. Maybe just for her to stop. He’ll be a mature adult about this. He will be. He just needs like maybe _five fucking minutes_ to process, okay? 

“_Q_,” Julia says back, and it sounds like maybe she’s pleading for something, too. “I’m just trying to understand.”

The people at the table next to theirs are definitely listening in, hearing Quentin getting a sex education lecture from his best friend in the middle of fucking Starbucks, and like, why are they even at Starbucks, there has to be a better local place nearby, this is New York for fuck’s sake. And Eliot is over there setting up a date with someone named _Chad_.

“I think her name was Ms. Kowalski. The health teacher, I mean,” is all he can think to say in response, and he hates how it makes Julia’s face go soft with sympathy. He doesn’t want her pity. It’s fine, really. Theoretical scenarios are always easier than the reality. He knows that. 

Eliot finally decides to tear himself away from his newest admirer and finally brings their drinks over, and he’s still smiling and laughing like nothing happened, but Quentin’s warm, easy mood is gone and his iced latte, which had sounded so good just a few minutes ago, leaves a sour taste in his mouth.

He just wants to go home and hold Helena, and probably not leave the apartment for another week, and also never come back to this Starbucks again. Getting out is overrated.

-

Once upon a time, Quentin had fifty years to learn that even though it took literally maybe those full fifty years for Eliot to get ready to go anywhere, Eliot had the active, seemingly-constant gall to hassle him about how long he was taking. It always happened like: after between two hours and two days Eliot would be ready, and suddenly Quentin was the problem. Once upon a right now, they’d just hit the second gentle knock on the bathroom door. Quentin sighs.

“Eliot, _god, okay,_” he calls back, and for a split second he forgets he’s having a tiny panic attack because he’s annoyed, but then, you know.

He had watched Eliot adoringly, lingeringly dress Helena while Quentin just sat there in his boxers, Helena squirming in her perfect tiny, tiny golden gown that made Quentin want to cry, complete with a matching elaborate headband. Eliot had consulted with Fray and their colors coordinated. Or matched. Or something. Is coordinating just matching? Oh my god. And then over the course of the last few days Eliot had given him like, essays about cufflinks and the fold that was ironed into the trousers and somehow cravats which wasn’t even relevant, which he figured out after confirming it from Wikipedia, there were no cravats, but maybe Eliot meant like, conceptually somehow? So: sure, Quentin cared about how he looked more than he would like to express to another person, but clip-on ties had also seen him through several traumatizing formal events in his life. He’s so aware of how_ un-nice_ he always lets himself look that the amount of care and thought Eliot put into all of this over the past few days feels like it’s going to choke him.

Even given just having realized he’s actually kind of happy, it’s hard to know what to do with the weight of Eliot’s attention, sometimes. In the best circumstances, it made him feel just a little embarrassed and unworthy, but that would wash away under warm relief. These are still maybe not the best circumstances. Watching Eliot dote on Helena is another story. But he needs to remember what weird thing Eliot wanted him to do with these cufflinks, and Eliot had spent hours over several days deciding on clothes Quentin will wear for maybe three hours, and he has to get a fucking grip. Jesus.

“We might be late, Q,” Eliot offers from his seemingly-constant gall, on the other side of the door.

“Fillory time is literally magic, asshole,” is Quentin’s response.

He half-hears Eliot say something he would go through the motions of finding annoying about _appropriate language_ and _early stages of development,_ as if he’s talking to Helena, but to be honest it’s pretty hot to hear Eliot talking about stages of development.

Okay, no, he has to focus on the Herculean task of _putting fucking clothes on._

Quentin had tried everything on piecemeal as Eliot produced and measured things. It was a lot of heavy dark blue brocade that he did not look forward to getting Fillory-drunk in at a wedding that was presumably outdoors, because bears, with golden-or-yellow _accents,_ which was another current favorite topic of Eliot’s. This was the first time, though, that he’d actually tried on everything.

And then, after the cufflinks were snapped on and he had taken exactly three calming breaths, it was just weird to look in the mirror. Because he looked, like, okay. His shoulders seemed broader, something about the fit of everything, the jacket and the shirt. He looked like a person meant to occupy the space he was in. Which was an insane thing to think, but it was what he thought, one word after the other. He opened his mouth, at his own reflection, then closed it. Then, he turned to open the door; Eliot wasn’t in the hallway.

When Quentin poked into the bedroom, Eliot was sitting on the bed with Helena in his lap, facing the door, with a degree of casualness and comfort that was incomprehensible with how he was dressed. He looked like a handsome, beloved fairytale prince that would clip coupons. He wished he had lingered more, had watched him get ready, which would be how, in the past, he’d failed to put a shirt and pants on while watching Eliot get dressed for hours.

But any of the hundred things he was thinking melted away when Eliot looked up at him.

It was like someone had hit him, his mouth listing open and his eyes wide. Helena’s reaction is easier to read: she babbles at the sight of him like they’re continuing a conversation from earlier. Eliot doesn’t say anything.

Quentin feels the embarrassment pitting his stomach again, and clears his throat. “Um, so...is it…?” He’s looking down at himself, lifting his arms, and the combination of all of these things and asking _is it okay_ would somehow be just over the line of hideous embarrassment.

“Q,” Eliot says, which is not a helpful answer. But his voice is warm. And Quentin is surprised to see--the look doesn’t wipe itself from his face, not completely. Quentin can’t help but think of all the times recently where it seems like Eliot doesn’t tamp down something real, the pauses in a conversation where he knows in his bones Eliot wants to withdraw, or is withdrawn, but stays. Eliot doesn’t look at him in any other way but the way he’s doing, like he’s maybe surprised by something.

“Hey,” Eliot says then, standing up, “hold,” and Quentin automatically offers his arms for Helena, where Eliot puts her, before his brain even processes the request. And then there it is: Eliot’s face setting into gentle concentration, his brow furrowing, while his hand rests on Quentin’s shoulder and he evaluates. “Okay,” Eliot says, like he’s caught something, and then Quentin can only fluster out a “_Hey_” when Eliot puts his hand down the front of Quentin’s trousers with absolutely zero subtext to push his shirt in, and then, with deep scrutiny, tugging it back loose one centimeter at a time.

And then Eliot rounds him, doing something with the tail of his jacket that involves pulling it, even though it can’t possibly make it fall any differently on his body. And then Eliot’s big, warm hands splay over his shoulders, pressing the fabric straight, and okay, Quentin’s cheeks were already burning.

Eliot rounds back in front of him, and he’s smiling so wide, taking a step back that must be in deference to seeing his completed outfits with accents on both Quentin and Helena, putting a regarding hand back on Quentin’s shoulder. But Quentin is surprised into smiling, too, and this is it: a little embarrassed and unworthy, but relieved. It’s hard to tell if Eliot’s eyes are shining wet or just bright.

“Do you know how many times I’ll have to hear tonight,” Eliot says, taking a decisive step back in front of him, his hand sliding to Quentin’s neck. “that I have a beautiful family?” His voice is low. “Just terrible.”

Quentin’s smile goes wider. “Yeah,” he says, “your life is so hard.”

And, well. They’re a family, they always will be, even though Quentin’s decided they need to talk, that he and Eliot can’t keep...well, _Quentin_ can’t keep sleeping with Eliot knowing that he’s also out there getting phone numbers from Starbucks baristas. Eliot hasn’t done anything wrong, it’s Quentin’s problem, Quentin’s issue. Julia, damn her, had been right, as usual.

It’s just, it can wait until after the wedding, right? Quentin can’t quite bring himself to say something _right now_, with Eliot’s soft eyes on him and his smile, and what kind of asshole would spoil a wedding that way?

Tomorrow, he thinks. Just enjoy tonight.

But before Quentin can try to make some kind of inelegant joke about them not being late, since Eliot is really looking at his mouth, Margo is yelling from what must be the living room to ask if they boned each other to death or what. Even so, Eliot makes the time to pull his face up to kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, we know they are being incredibly stupid! We are currently experiencing secondhand embarrassment as we reach the Peak Stupidity phase of the story. Don't worry, it's all about to come to a head at the Fillorian social event of the season.


End file.
